There’s a chapter in the Bible that religious leaders tried to suppress. A chapter so dangerous to man-made religion that it sparked the Protestant Reformation.

A chapter that when truly understood has the power to either liberate you completely or expose that everything you believe about God is wrong.

We’re talking about Galatians 5. And here’s why it terrifies the religious establishment. It reveals that your good works mean nothing.

Absolutely nothing. In fact, Paul makes the shocking claim that trying to earn God’s favor will actually cut you off from Christ.

But it doesn’t stop there. This chapter exposes a hidden war happening inside your soul right now.

A brutal conflict between two forces fighting for control of your life. And then comes the twist that changes everything.

Paul reveals that God’s entire moral law, every commandment ever given, can be reduced to something so simple a child could understand it.

Yet, most Christians miss it completely. In the next few minutes, you’re going to discover why this single chapter holds the secret to authentic Christianity, why it’s been called the Magna Carta of Christian Liberty, and why understanding these 26 verses might be the most important thing you ever do.

Let’s begin. For centuries before Jesus walked the earth, God’s people lived under a massive system of laws.

These weren’t just a few simple rules written on stone tablets. There were 613 commandments given through Moses that covered absolutely everything in daily life.

What you could eat and what was forbidden. What animals were clean and which ones would make you unclean if you even touched them.

How to wash your hands before meals. What kind of clothes you could wear and what fabrics couldn’t be mixed together.

When you could work and when you had to rest, how to treat diseases. How to handle disputes.

Every single day from sunrise to sunset was filled with requirements and restrictions. A Jewish person woke up in the morning and immediately had to start thinking about the law.

Did I wash correctly? Is this food prepared the right way? Am I allowed to do this task today?

They went to sleep at night mentally reviewing all the ways they had failed to measure up that day.

Parents taught these commands to their children from the time they could talk. And those children grew up and taught them to their own children.

It was an endless cycle that passed from generation to generation. Each one carrying the same crushing weight.

The temple in Jerusalem was the center of this whole system. Priests worked there constantly, day after day, year after year, offering sacrifices.

Animals were brought in continuously. Lambs, goats, bulls, doves, their blood was poured out on altars, their bodies burned, smoke rising up to heaven as an offering to God.

The smell of burning flesh and blood was always in the air. But here’s the devastating problem.

The guilt never went away. The sacrifices had to be repeated over and over because they couldn’t actually remove sin from a person’s heart.

They only covered it temporarily, like putting a bandage on a wound that never heals.

The law itself was like a giant mirror that showed you every flaw, every mistake, every failure, every way you didn’t measure up to God’s perfect standard.

But a mirror can’t clean you. It can only show you that you’re dirty. It reveals the problem, but can’t fix it.

So, the people tried harder. They memorized more commands. They studied the law day and night.

They created hundreds of additional rules around God’s rules to make sure they wouldn’t even come close to breaking the original ones.

If God said, “Don’t work on the Sabbath,” they defined exactly what work meant, how many steps you could walk, how much weight you could [music] carry, what actions counted as labor.

They built a fence around the law to protect themselves. But no matter how hard anyone tried, no matter how dedicated they were, the law always revealed the same painful truth.

You’re not good enough. You’re falling short. Nobody could keep all 613 commands perfectly. One person might be good at some commands but fail at others.

Another might succeed in different areas but stumble somewhere else, but everybody failed somewhere. And the weight of that constant failure, that ongoing guilt, that awareness of never measuring up, it pressed down on every person, every family, every generation like a heavy stone that couldn’t be lifted.

Then came the day that changed everything in human history. Outside the walls of Jerusalem, on a hill called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull, Jesus of Nazareth, hung on a Roman cross.

To the people standing there watching, it looked like just another execution. Rome crucified thousands of people and three more criminals dying that day didn’t seem particularly special.

Two thieves hung on crosses beside Jesus. All three suffering the worst death Rome had invented.

A death so horrible that Roman citizens were exempt from it. Reserved only for the worst criminals and rebels.

But something far bigger than anyone could see was happening in the spiritual realm during those 6 hours.

Every sin that had ever been committed since Adam and Eve in the garden, every broken command, every failure, every evil thought, every selfish action, every rebellion against God from every human being who had ever lived or ever would live.

All of it was being placed on Jesus in those hours of darkness. The law had always demanded perfection.

And when people failed to be perfect, it demanded death as payment. The soul who sins shall die.

God had declared through the prophet Ezekiel, “The wages of sin is death.” Paul would later write.

Someone had to pay the price. Justice had to be satisfied. And Jesus took it all upon himself.

The full curse of the law, the full punishment for sin, the full weight of divine justice and holy wrath came crashing down on him as he hung there.

He became sin for us, Paul would explain, though he himself had never sinned. He carried our guilt, bore our shame, took our punishment.

When he finally cried out with a loud voice, “It is finished,” and breathed his last breath, “Something impossible happened inside the temple in Jerusalem.”

The massive curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple suddenly tore in two from top to bottom.

This wasn’t a small piece of fabric hanging in a doorway. This curtain was 60 ft high, as tall as a six-story building, and 4 in thick, woven from heavy material in blue, purple, and scarlet colors.

It was so thick and heavy that it would take multiple strong men working together just to move it.

And it ripped apart from the top down to the bottom. Meaning human hands didn’t tear it.

God himself tore it open from heaven to earth. For more than a thousand years, that curtain had symbolized the separation between a holy God and sinful humanity.

It hung there as a barrier, a wall, a reminder that people couldn’t just waltz into God’s presence whenever they wanted.

Only the high priest could go behind that curtain into the Holy of Holies where God’s presence dwelt.

And he could only go once a year on the day of atonement, and he could only go with blood from a sacrifice.

If anyone else tried to go in, they would die. But now that curtain lay in two pieces.

The barrier was destroyed. The wall was demolished. Access to God was thrown wide open.

The entire system of sacrifices, of priests offering blood, of people trying to work their way to God through religious performance.

It was finished, completed, fulfilled, done. Jesus hadn’t just died to pay for sins. He had shattered the whole structure of religious obligation and opened a new way to God.

Paul had traveled through the region of Galatia preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the people there had received his message with incredible joy.

They believed in Jesus. They trusted in his sacrifice. They experienced the freedom that comes from knowing your sins are forgiven, not because of what you’ve done, but because of what Christ did.

They felt the crushing weight lift off their shoulders. It was like breathing fresh air for the first time.

But after Paul left to continue his work in other cities, other teachers arrived in Galatia with a different message.

These false teachers weren’t completely denying Jesus. Instead, they had a more subtle approach. They told the Galatian believers, “Yes, it’s good that you believe in Jesus.

That’s an important first step, but it’s not quite enough by itself. You also need to be circumcised like Abraham was.

You need to follow the Jewish laws and customs that God gave to Moses. You need to observe the Sabbath and the Jewish festivals.

Then you’ll really be complete. Then you’ll truly be part of God’s covenant people. It sounded so reasonable.

It seemed like wise spiritual advice. After all, Abraham was the father of faith, and God had commanded him to be circumcised.

Moses received the law directly from God on Mount Si. Surely these things must still matter, right?

But Paul saw through this teaching immediately. He recognized the deadly poison hidden inside what looked like spiritual wisdom.

When news reached him about what was happening, he wrote this letter with fierce urgency.

In the very first verse of chapter 5, he writes, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

That word yoke painted a vivid picture everyone would instantly understand. They had all seen oxen with heavy wooden frames placed across their necks and shoulders, forcing them to pull plows through hard ground all day under the hot sun.

The yoke controlled them, directed them, burdened them, made them servants to someone else’s will.

That’s exactly what Paul was comparing this false teaching to, a yoke of slavery. These teachers wanted to take people who had just been liberated and put them back into bondage.

They wanted to place that heavy wooden frame back on necks that had just been freed.

Circumcision wasn’t just a simple physical procedure. It was a doorway, a commitment, a declaration.

Walk through that door. And you were saying that faith in Jesus wasn’t sufficient by itself.

You were announcing that you needed to add your own religious performance to what Christ had accomplished.

You were stepping back under the law, back under that system of 613 commands. And once you took that first step, there was no stopping halfway.

Paul wasn’t gentle with his words here. And he had a very good reason. The stakes were too high for soft language.

People’s eternal destinies hung in the balance. In verse two, he states it as clearly as possible.

Mark my words. I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

He wanted them to pay close attention. Mark my words, he said, listen carefully because this is crucial.

If you accept circumcision as necessary for salvation, if you go through with this procedure thinking it will make you right with God or complete your salvation, then Christ will be of no value to you at all.

Read that phrase again slowly. No value at all. Zero. Nothing. Worthless. If you’re trying to be saved by religious rituals and rulekeeping, then Jesus dying on the cross means absolutely nothing to you personally.

You’ve rejected his sacrifice as insufficient. You’ve trampled on grace. You’ve said that what he did wasn’t good enough.

So, you need to add your own works to finish the job. You can’t have it both ways.

You can’t say Jesus plus circumcision or grace plus works or faith plus religious performance.

It’s one or the other. Then in verse three, Paul explains exactly why. Again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

Here’s the trap the false teachers weren’t being honest about. They were only pushing circumcision, just one requirement, one small addition to faith.

It didn’t seem like such a big deal on the surface, but Paul pulls back the curtain and reveals what that one requirement actually means in practice.

The moment you accept circumcision as necessary for your salvation, you’ve just agreed to keep all 613 commandments of the Mosaic law.

Not just the ones that seem reasonable or doable. Not just the easy ones, all of them.

Every single one. Every dietary restriction, every ceremonial washing, every festival observance, every sacrifice, every regulation.

And you have to keep them perfectly without fail. Every single day for your entire life.

Because in the law’s system, one failure means you’ve broken the entire law. James later explained this when he wrote that whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

The law doesn’t grade on a curve. You don’t get partial credit. The standard is absolute complete perfect obedience.

And nobody, not one single person except Jesus can achieve that. That’s exactly why Jesus had to come.

That’s exactly why grace through faith is the only way. In verse four, Paul uses a phrase that has been misunderstood for 2,000 years.

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ.

You have fallen away from grace. To me, when most people hear fallen from grace, they immediately think it means losing your salvation because you sin too much.

They picture someone who was saved but then committed some terrible sin and lost their salvation.

But that interpretation is completely wrong. He’s not talking about losing salvation through sinful behavior at all.

He’s describing something totally different. Picture someone standing firmly on a solid platform labeled grace.

It would mean they’re resting completely in what Jesus accomplished. They’re trusting his finished work on the cross.

They’re relying on his righteousness instead of trying to build their own. They’re secure and at peace because their salvation depends entirely on what Christ [music] did, not on what they do.

Now picture that same person deliberately stepping off that platform and jumping onto a different one labeled lawkeeping.

They haven’t fallen because they committed a sin. They’ve fallen because they’ve stopped relying on grace as their source of righteousness.

They’ve traded the security of trusting in Jesus for the impossible burden of trying to save themselves through religious performance.

They’ve moved from the grace system to the work system. That’s what falling from grace means.

It’s not about sinning your way out of salvation. It’s about abandoning grace as your operating system and trying to switch back to law.

This is exactly what was happening to the Galatian believers. These people had started their Christian lives by faith alone.

They had heard Paul preach that Jesus paid it all and salvation is a free gift received through faith.

They had celebrated their freedom. They had experienced the Holy Spirit working powerfully among them.

But now these false teachers were gradually convincing them that faith wasn’t quite enough. They needed to add circumcision.

They needed to perform certain rituals. They needed to follow certain regulations. And step by step, they were sliding away from the grace platform back toward the law platform.

They were falling from grace, not into sin, but into legalism. Paul’s warning was urgent because he understood exactly where this path led.

He knew from his own experience as a Pharisee that you simply cannot mix these two systems together.

They’re fundamentally incompatible. Either you’re saved by grace through faith, receiving salvation as a free gift you didn’t earn and don’t deserve, or you’re trying to earn salvation through your own efforts.

There’s no middle ground, no hybrid option, no compromise position where you can have a little of both.

But Paul needed to make something absolutely clear because he knew how people might misunderstand.

When he talked about salvation by faith apart from works of the law, he wasn’t describing some passive dead belief that doesn’t change anything about how you actually live.

He wasn’t promoting a faith that just agrees with theological facts but never affects your behavior.

That’s not real faith at all. In verse 6, Paul writes, “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. This sentence is absolutely vital to understand.

Real, genuine, saving faith is alive. It’s active. It moves. It expresses itself outwardly in visible ways.

And the primary way that authentic faith expresses itself is through love for God and love for other people.

Notice very carefully what Paul said and what he deliberately didn’t say. He didn’t say that faith expresses itself through religious ceremonies or through perfectly following a list of rules or through achieving certain standards of behavior.

He said faith expresses itself through love and this distinction matters enormously. Here’s why this is such a big deal.

The law commanded people to love. It said, “Love your neighbor as yourself and love the Lord your God with all your heart.”

But the law could never produce that love in people’s hearts. It could only condemn them when they failed to love properly.

[music] The law was external, written on stone tablets memorized in the mind, but it couldn’t penetrate down into the heart and actually make someone want to love.

It could tell you what you should do, but it couldn’t give you the desire or power to do it.

So people would try to obey the command to love, but their obedience was forced, dutiful, motivated by fear of punishment or desire for reward.

It wasn’t genuine love flowing from a transformed heart. But grace works in a completely different way when you truly grasp that God loved you enough to send Jesus to die for you while you were still a sinner and his enemy.

When you understand that you’re completely forgiven, not because you deserved it or earned it, but purely because God chose to forgive you based on Christ’s sacrifice.

When you realize that you’re fully accepted into God’s family forever, and nothing can separate you from his love, that profound understanding begins to transform you from the inside out.

The Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart and starts changing your desires, your motivations, your whole way of thinking.

And the result is that you start loving people. Not because a commandment is forcing you to, not because you’re trying to earn God’s approval, but because love has been poured into your heart by God’s spirit.

You serve others and sacrifice for them, not to gain salvation, but because you already have it.

You love not to become righteous, but because you’ve already been made righteous through faith in Christ.

This is what the law always wanted to produce, but never could. Because it worked from the outside in.

Grace works from the inside out. Paul’s mind shifted to a powerful image that everyone would immediately understand.

Athletic competition. The Roman Empire was filled with stadiums where athletes competed in races and everyone knew what it took to win.

In verse 7, Paul asks, “You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?”

Picture a long distance race where runners are completely focused on the finish line. They’re making steady progress, running with good form, maintaining strong determination, keeping their eyes fixed ahead.

Everything is going well. They’re on pace. They’re running exactly as they should. Then suddenly, without warning, someone jumps onto the track right in front of them, blocking their path, getting in their way, pushing them off to the side, maybe even tripping them so they stumble and fall.

That’s exactly what had happened in Galatia. The believers there had been running their spiritual race beautifully.

They had started strong when they first believed the gospel Paul preached. They had been growing steadily in their faith, maturing in their understanding of Christ, living in the freedom that comes from grace, experiencing the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit working among them.

Their spiritual race was going great. They were heading in the right direction, making good progress toward maturity.

Then these false teachers showed up and cut right across their path like someone jumping onto a racetrack.

They confused the Galatians with mixed messages that contradicted what Paul had taught them. They slowed their spiritual progress by making them question everything they had believed about salvation.

They made them stumble by convincing them they needed to go back under the law’s requirements.

The Galatians had been running toward freedom and these teachers pushed them back toward slavery.

Paul’s question hung in the air. Who did this to you? Who had the influence to derail your race?

Who convinced you to stop trusting in Christ alone? Who talked you into thinking you needed to add human effort to divine grace?

Who persuaded you that the gospel wasn’t complete by itself? In verse 8, Paul provides the answer.

That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. God didn’t send this confusing message.

The Holy Spirit didn’t inspire this teaching. Jesus didn’t tell them to go back under bondage to the law.

This persuasion was coming from a completely different source from people who either didn’t truly understand the gospel themselves or who had ulterior motives.

The Christian life is indeed a race, but it’s not a short sprint. It’s a longd distanceance journey that requires endurance, focus, and staying on the right path.

Paul switched to another illustration, this time from something every household knew, breadmaking. In verse 9, he states simply, “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”

Anyone who had ever baked bread understood this principle perfectly. You don’t need much yeast, just a small amount.

And if you give it time, it spreads throughout all the dough, changing the entire batch.

What starts as a tiny portion becomes pervasive, affecting everything it touches. Paul was issuing a warning.

False teaching operates exactly the same way. It might seem small at first. Just one little requirement added to faith in Jesus.

Just circumcision, just this one rule. What harm could it possibly do? But that small compromise doesn’t stay contained.

It spreads like yeast through dough. Give it time and soon it’s not just circumcision anymore.

Now it’s dietary laws. Now it’s observing special holy days. Now it’s performing specific rituals.

Now it’s following more and more regulations. The simple gospel of grace gets buried under an ever growing mountain of human requirements.

The liberating message of faith alone gets lost in a complex system of religious performance and before long the entire church community is infected with legalism and nobody can even remember what freedom in Christ felt like.

Paul had seen this pattern play out before. He knew how dangerous it was. That’s precisely why his language throughout this letter was so strong, so urgent, so uncompromising.

He wasn’t being unnecessarily harsh. He was being like a doctor who spots cancer in its earlier stage and knows that immediate aggressive action is required to cut it out before it spreads through the whole body and kills the patient.

This teaching about needing to add works and religious performance to faith, it had to be confronted and stopped right now immediately without delay.

Because if it wasn’t stopped, it would destroy everything that Christ had accomplished on the cross.

The yeast of legalism would spread until the whole church was consumed by it, and the pure gospel would be lost completely.

Paul shifts his focus to something that every Christian experiences, but few truly understand, an internal battle that never stops.

In verse 16, he gives a command. So I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Why? Then in verse 17 he explains why this matters so much. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.

They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Inside every believer there are two opposing forces fighting for control. The first force is called the flesh.

This isn’t talking about your physical body, but rather your old sinful nature that you inherited from Adam.

It’s [clears throat] that part of you that still wants to live independently from God that still pulls you towards selfishness and sin.

The second force is the Holy Spirit, God himself living inside you, working to transform you into the image of Christ.

These two forces aren’t friends trying to work together. They’re not partners who compromise and find middle ground.

They’re enemies at war. The flesh wants one thing, and the spirit wants the exact opposite.

The flesh pulls you toward doing whatever feels good in the moment, whatever satisfies your immediate desires, whatever keeps you at the center of your own life.

The spirit pulls you in a completely different direction toward holiness, toward putting God first, toward living for something bigger than yourself.

And here’s what makes this so intense. They’re both inside you at the same time, fighting against each other constantly.

When the spirit prompts you to pray, the flesh tells you you’re too tired. When the spirit nudges you to forgive someone, the flesh wants to hold on to bitterness.

When the spirit leads you to be generous, the flesh screams to protect what’s yours.

This conflict is real. It’s constant and it’s exhausting. Paul isn’t describing something that only super spiritual people experience.

This is the reality for every single believer. The moment you became a Christian, the Holy Spirit came to live in you.

But your flesh didn’t disappear. It’s still there, still fighting, still trying to regain control.

Understanding this conflict is crucial because it explains why you still struggle with sin even after you’ve been saved.

It’s not that salvation didn’t work or that you’re not really a Christian. It’s that there’s a war happening inside you and that war won’t end until you leave this earth.

And Paul doesn’t leave anyone guessing about what the flesh produces. In verses 19- 21, he provides a detailed list that exposes exactly what life looks like when the flesh is in control.

He writes, “The acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity, and deborty, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

Look at that list carefully. It’s not [music] random. Paul starts with sexual sins. Sexual immorality means any sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and woman.

Impurity refers to dirty thoughts and corrupt desires. And deborty is living without any moral restraint at all.

Doing whatever feels good without any sense of shame. Then he moves to spiritual sins.

Idolatry is putting anything in the place that belongs to God alone. Whether that’s money, success, relationships, or even yourself.

Witchcraft involves trying to manipulate spiritual forces apart from God, seeking power through occult practices.

Next come relational sins. And notice how many of these there are. Hatred is intense hostility toward others.

Discord means causing division and stirring up conflict. Jealousy is resenting what others have and wanting it for yourself.

Fits of rage are explosive outbursts of anger that harm people around you. Selfish ambition is pushing yourself forward at the expense of others, stepping on people to get what you want.

Dissensions and factions both deal with creating splits and divisions in communities, particularly in churches.

Envy is similar to jealousy, but focuses more on wanting to destroy what others have because you can’t have it.

Finally, Paul lists sins related to losing control. Drunkenness is letting alcohol control you instead of the spirit controlling you.

And orgies refers to wild parties where people give themselves over completely to physical pleasures.

Then Paul adds something important at the end and the like. He’s saying this list isn’t complete.

There are more expressions of the flesh than he could write down. But these examples show a clear pattern.

When the flesh is in control of a person’s life, it produces chaos, destruction, broken relationships, and slavery to desires.

Every single item on this list is about serving yourself, gratifying your own desires, living for your own pleasure, and not caring about God or other people.

This is what humanity produces when left to its own devices without the spirit’s influence.

Paul doesn’t just list these sins and move on. He adds a warning that demands serious attention.

At the end of verse 21, after listing the acts of the flesh, he states, “I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Read that slowly. Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul is drawing a line in the sand. He’s making it clear that there’s a fundamental difference between someone who occasionally stumbles into sin and someone who lives in sin as their normal lifestyle.

The word live here is crucial. It’s not talking about a believer who struggles with jealousy sometimes or who loses their temper occasionally.

It’s talking about someone whose life is characterized by these things. Someone who practices these sins habitually without any conviction, without any desire to change, without any evidence that the Holy Spirit is working in them at all.

A true Christian will stumble. They’ll fall into sin. They’ll have moments where the flesh wins a battle.

But a true Christian cannot live comfortably in continuous unrepentant sin without the Holy Spirit bringing conviction, discomfort, and a desire to repent.

If someone can practice sexual immorality day after day without any guilt, if they can stir up hatred and division without any conviction, if they can live in drunkenness and selfish ambition without any internal conflict, that’s a massive red flag.

It reveals that the Holy Spirit might not be living in them at all. Paul isn’t saying you can lose your salvation by sinning.

He’s saying that if these sins characterize your lifestyle without any conviction or desire to change, it indicates you may never have been saved in the first place.

The kingdom of God belongs to those who have been transformed by the spirit, not to those who merely claim to believe while continuing to live exactly like the world lives.

This warning should make everyone examine themselves honestly, not to create fear or doubt, but to ensure that the faith we claim is real and genuine.

After describing what the flesh produces, Paul reveals what believers have done with their flesh.

In verse 24, he makes a stunning statement. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Notice he doesn’t say should crucify or need to crucify. He says have crucified. Past tense already done.

When you became a Christian, something decisive happened to your flesh. It was crucified. Now that’s strong language.

Crucifixion was the most brutal, violent form of execution in the Roman world. It was slow, agonizing, and public.

When Paul uses this imagery, he’s saying that believers have executed their sinful nature, not reformed it, not improved it, not managed it better, executed [music] it, put it to death.

This happened at conversion. When you placed your faith in Christ, you identified with his death on the cross.

Romans chapter 6 explains that you died with Christ. Your old self was crucified with him.

The person you used to be, the one who was controlled by the flesh, who lived for selfish desires, who was spiritually dead, that person died.

But here’s what’s confusing for many Christians. If the flesh was crucified, why do we still struggle with it?

Because crucifixion wasn’t instant death. People hung on crosses for hours or even days, sometimes still moving, still gasping for air, still fighting.

The flesh is like that. >> [music] >> It’s been delivered a death blow, but it’s not completely gone yet.

It still fights, still tempts, still tries to regain control, but its power has been broken.

It no longer has ultimate authority over you. You’re no longer a slave to it.

You have a choice now. You can give in to its desires, or you can recognize that it’s already been defeated through Christ’s death.

This is why Paul talks about putting the flesh to death daily. It’s not that you crucify it over and over.

It’s that you live in the reality of what’s already been done. You refuse to let a defeated enemy dictate your life.

You treat the flesh like what it is, something that’s already been sentenced to death, just waiting for the final execution.

Now, Paul shifts from the ugly list of what the flesh produces, to the beautiful description of what the spirit creates.

In verses 22 and 23, he writes, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Notice something important right away. Paul doesn’t say fruits plural. He says fruit singular. This isn’t a menu where you pick and choose which qualities you want.

It’s one unified fruit with multiple aspects. When the Holy Spirit controls your life, all of these qualities begin to grow together.

You don’t work on developing love this month and then move on to joy next month.

They’re all connected. All part of the same transformation that happens when you walk by the spirit.

Look at what this fruit includes. Love, not just romantic feelings, but genuine care for others that acts in their best interest, even when it costs you something.

Joy, not happiness that depends on circumstances, but deep contentment that comes from knowing God regardless of what’s happening around you.

Peace, not just absence of conflict, but inner calm and security rooted in your relationship with God.

Forbearance, which some translations call patience, the ability to endure difficult people and difficult situations without giving up or lashing out.

Kindness, treating people with gentleness and compassion, showing grace even when they don’t deserve it.

Goodness, moral excellence that shows up in your character and actions, doing what’s right simply because it’s right.

Uh faithfulness, being reliable, trustworthy, someone who keeps their word and doesn’t abandon commitments when things get hard.

Gentleness, strength under control, power exercised with care rather than force. And self-control. The ability to say no to destructive desires and yes to what’s truly good for you.

Here’s what’s amazing about this list. You cannot manufacture these qualities through willpower or self-effort.

You can’t wake up one morning and decide to be more joyful or more patient through sheer determination.

These aren’t achievements you accomplish. They’re fruit that grows naturally when the spirit is in control.

Think about actual fruit for a moment. An apple tree doesn’t strain and sweat to produce apples.

It doesn’t try really hard or follow a manual on apple production. It simply stays connected to its roots, receives nutrients, gets sunlight and water, and fruit appears naturally as a result of being the kind of tree it is.

That’s exactly how spiritual fruit works. When you stay connected to Christ, when you walk by the spirit, when you let him lead your life, this fruit begins to grow in you naturally.

Not instantly. Fruit takes time to mature, but inevitably. At the very end of verse 23, Paul adds a fascinating statement that’s easy to overlook.

Against such things, there is no law. At first, this might seem like an odd thing to say.

Of course, there’s no law against love or joy or peace. Nobody’s going to arrest you for being kind or gentle.

But Paul’s point goes much deeper than that. He’s revealing something profound about how the spirit-led life relates to the law.

Remember, the whole letter to the Galatians has been about the conflict between law and grace, between trying to be saved by keeping rules versus being saved by faith in Christ.

The law was given to restrain evil, to put boundaries around sinful behavior, to tell people don’t do this and stop doing that.

Every law exists because people do bad things. We have laws against murder because people kill.

We have laws against theft because people steal. Laws exist to control the flesh, to put limits on sinful desires.

But here’s what Paul is saying. When the spirit produces his fruit in you, you transcend the need for law, not because you’re above the law or because it doesn’t apply to you, but because you’re naturally doing what the law always wanted, but could never produce.

A person operating in love doesn’t need a law telling them not to harm their neighbor.

They already want what’s best for their neighbor. A person with self-control doesn’t need rules to prevent drunkenness.

They’re already exercising restraint. A person characterized by gentleness doesn’t need regulations against violence. They’ve already put away rage and aggression.

The spirit accomplishes what the law never could. The law could tell you what to do, but it couldn’t change your heart to make you want to do it.

The law could demand that you love, but it couldn’t make you loving. The spirit does what the law couldn’t.

He transforms you from the inside so that righteousness flows naturally from who you’ve become, not from external pressure forcing you to behave a certain way.

This is the beauty of the spiritfilled life. You’re not constantly checking rules to see what’s allowed and what’s forbidden.

You’re not motivated by fear of punishment or desire for reward. You’re simply becoming the kind of person who naturally does what’s right because the spirit is changing your character.

Paul returns to the concept he introduced earlier but now with more clarity about how it works.

In verse 16 he had said walk by the spirit. In verse 25 he expands on this.

Since we live by the spirit let us keep in step with the spirit. Walking by the spirit isn’t about following a formula or memorizing a set of rules for spiritual success.

It’s about momentby-moment dependence on God’s guidance. Picture what walking actually involves. When you walk, you don’t plan out every single step in advance.

You don’t calculate exactly where your foot will land six steps from now. You simply move forward step by step, adjusting as you go based on the terrain, the obstacles, the direction you need to go.

That’s what walking by the spirit looks like. It’s a dynamic, ongoing relationship where you stay sensitive to his leading and respond to his prompings throughout your day.

Maybe you’re about to send an angry text message and the spirit nudges you to wait.

Maybe you’re rushing past someone who needs help and the spirit slows you down and draws your attention to them.

Maybe you’re making a decision and multiple options seem reasonable, but the spirit gives you a sense of peace about one direction over another.

This isn’t about hearing audible voices or seeing visions, though God can work that way if he chooses.

Usually, it’s much quieter. It’s a sense of conviction when you’re about to do something wrong.

It’s an inner prompting to reach out to someone. It’s a growing awareness that a certain path honors God while another doesn’t.

It’s peace or lack of peace as you consider different choices. Walking by the spirit requires paying attention.

You have to be listening. You have to be willing to adjust your plans when he redirects you.

You have to trust his guidance even when it doesn’t make complete sense to your human reasoning.

This is completely different from the old law system where everything was spelled out in advance.

The law said, “Here are the rules. Follow them exactly. The spirit says, “Here I am.

Follow me.” One is static and rigid. The other is alive and dynamic. But Paul doesn’t just say, “Walk by the spirit.”

In verse 25, he uses a more specific phrase, keep in step with the spirit.

This language would have been very familiar to his readers. It’s a military term used to describe soldiers marching in formation.

When an army marches, everyone moves at the same pace, in the same rhythm, coordinated together.

Nobody runs ahead of the group. Nobody lags behind. Everyone stays in step with each other and with the commander leading them.

Paul is saying that’s exactly how our relationship with the spirit should function. We need to move at his pace, not ours.

This is where many Christians struggle. Some rush ahead of the spirit. They get excited about something and charge forward without waiting for his leading.

They make decisions impulsively, start projects on their own initiative, take action before God has given clear direction.

They’re not keeping in step. They’re running ahead. Other Christians lag behind the spirit. [music] He’s prompting them to act, nudging them towards something, opening a door for them to walk through, but they hesitate.

They’re afraid or comfortable or distracted. So, they drag their feet and don’t move when he’s clearly leading forward.

They’re not keeping in step. They’re falling behind. Keeping in step means moving when he moves and stopping when he stops.

It means acting promptly when he prompts you without rushing ahead of his timing. It means staying in rhythm with him, synchronized with his pace.

This requires constant attention and sensitivity. You have to be aware of what the spirit is doing in your life at any given moment.

Are you sensing his conviction about something? Respond to it now. Are you feeling his prompting to reach out to someone?

Do it today, not next month. Are you experiencing his peace about a decision? Move forward with confidence.

Are you lacking peace about something? Wait. Even if it seems like you’re missing an opportunity, the difference between walking by the spirit occasionally and keeping in step with the spirit consistently is the difference between having random spiritual experiences and living a spiritdirected life every single day.

[music] It’s not about perfection. You’ll miss steps sometimes, get out of rhythm, need to adjust, but it’s about your overall posture and orientation.

Are you trying to stay in step with him or are you basically living your own life and occasionally asking him to bless your plans?

Paul takes the Galatians back to something fundamental that changes everything about how they should view God’s commands.

In verse 14 of chapter 5, he makes a statement that would have shocked his Jewish readers.

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Think about what he just said. The entire law, all 613 commandments that filled scrolls and scrolls of scripture, every regulation about sacrifices, every rule about what to eat, every instruction about festivals and ceremonies, every command about how to treat people, all of it comes down to one thing.

Love your neighbor as yourself. This wasn’t a new idea that Paul invented. Jesus had taught this same truth when religious leaders asked him which commandment was the greatest.

He told them to love God with all their heart and to love their neighbor as themselves.

And then he said something remarkable. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commands.

Paul is echoing Jesus here, but he’s making it even more specific for the Galatians.

He’s showing them that if they’re worried about keeping the law, if they’re concerned about pleasing God through religious performance, if they’re wondering whether they need to follow all those Old Testament regulations, the answer is found in love.

When you genuinely love your neighbor as yourself, you’re fulfilling what the law was always trying to accomplish.

You won’t steal from someone you love. You won’t lie to someone you love. You won’t harm someone you love.

[music] You won’t coveret what belongs to someone you love. Love doesn’t just summarize the law as if it’s a shorter version of the same thing.

Love actually transcends the law. It goes beyond what the law could ever demand because love is internal and the law was external.

The law said don’t murder, but love says don’t even hate. The law said don’t commit adultery, but love says don’t even look at someone with lust.

The law set minimum standards, but love has no maximum. It keeps giving, keeps serving, keeps sacrificing.

This is why Paul can confidently tell the Galatians they don’t need to go back under the law’s regulations.

If they walk in love, they’re accomplishing everything God ever wanted from the law in the first place.

Paul needs to address something crucial because he knows how people think. When you tell someone they’re free from the law, their immediate question is often, “Does that mean I can do whatever I want?”

In verse 13, Paul tackles this head on. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh.

Rather, serve one another humbly in love. Freedom in Christ is real freedom. You’re not under the law’s demands anymore.

You’re not trying to earn God’s approval through ruleepkeeping. You’re not enslaved to religious performance.

That’s genuine liberation. But here’s what freedom is not. It’s not permission to live however you want, satisfying every selfish desire that pops into your head.

The flesh, that sinful nature we talked about earlier, would love to hijack your freedom and use it as an excuse for self-indulgence.

The flesh says, “You’re free from the law.” Great. That means you can sleep with whoever you want, get drunk whenever you want, spend money however you want, treat people however you want.

You’re free. But that’s not freedom at all. That’s just slavery to a different master.

When you give in to every selfish desire, you become a slave to those desires.

Paul is saying that true freedom has a purpose, and that purpose is love. You’ve been freed from the law, not so you can live for yourself, but so you can genuinely serve others.

Under the law, if you served people or helped them, there was always a question.

Are you doing this because you have to or because you want to? Are you being kind because God commanded it or because you genuinely care?

But when you’re free from the law and you choose to serve someone, there’s no question about your motivation.

You’re not doing it because a rule forces you. You’re doing it because love compels you.

You’re free to be selfish, but you choose to be generous. You’re free to protect yourself, but you choose to sacrifice.

You’re free to walk away, but you choose to stay and help. That’s the highest expression of freedom.

Voluntarily choosing to use your liberty for the benefit of others rather than for your own gratification.

Right before Paul tells them to love their neighbor, he gives them a stark warning about what happens when love is absent.

In verse 15, he says, “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

That’s shocking language. Biting and devouring. Those are words you’d use to describe wild animals tearing into prey, not words you’d expect to describe people in a church.

But Paul chose those words deliberately because he’d seen what happened in communities where love disappeared and rules took over.

When churches become focused on lawkeeping instead of love, something ugly happens. People start watching each other, looking for failures, pointing out mistakes, gossip spreads, judgment flows freely.

Everyone’s measuring everyone else against their own standard of righteousness. Someone doesn’t dress right, they get criticized.

Someone doesn’t worship the right way. They get condemned. Someone makes a mistake. Everyone talks about it.

It becomes a competition to see who’s the most spiritual, who follows the rules best, who can point out the most errors in others.

And in that environment, people don’t build each other up. They tear each other down.

They bite and devour. They attack each other’s reputations. They wound with their words. They destroy with their judgments.

Paul is warning the Galatians that this is exactly where they’re headed if they abandon grace and go back to lawkeeping.

The false teachers who wanted them circumcised weren’t just wrong theologically. They were creating a toxic culture where people would constantly attack each other over who was keeping the rules properly and who wasn’t.

Churches like this become battlegrounds instead of families. Members become enemies instead of brothers and sisters and eventually they destroy each other.

People leave wounded. Relationships end broken. Faith gets damaged. All because love was replaced with legalism.

This is the inevitable result when rules dominate and love disappears. You can’t build a healthy Christian community on judgment and criticism.

You can only build it on love. Paul moves from warning about what love doesn’t look like to showing what love actually does in practical terms.

In chapter 6 verse two, he gives a clear instruction. Carry each other’s burdens. And in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Love isn’t just a feeling or an attitude. It shows up in concrete actions. And one of the most important actions is burdenbearing.

Every person you know is carrying something heavy. Maybe it’s a struggle with sin they can’t seem to overcome.

Maybe it’s grief from losing someone they loved. Maybe it’s anxiety about their finances or their health.

Maybe it’s the weight of a broken marriage or a rebellious child. Maybe it’s depression that makes every day feel impossible.

These are burdens, weights that are too heavy for one person to carry alone. And Paul says that when you see a fellow believer struggling under a burden, you don’t just feel sorry for them from a distance.

You don’t just say, “I’ll pray for you.” And walk away. Though prayer is important, you actually get involved.

You step in. You help carry the weight. [music] What does burdenbearing look like practically?

Sometimes it’s sitting with someone who’s grieving and just being present even when you don’t know what to say.

Sometimes it’s helping someone financially when they’re in crisis. Giving sacrificially to meet their [music] need.

Sometimes it’s taking care of someone’s kids so they can have a break. Sometimes it’s walking alongside someone who’s fighting addiction.

Checking in regularly, being available when they’re tempted. Sometimes it’s speaking truth to someone caught in sin, lovingly confronting them instead of ignoring the problem.

Sometimes it’s defending someone who’s being criticized unfairly. The specifics vary, but the principle is constant.

You see someone struggling, and instead of walking past or judging them or feeling superior that you don’t have that problem, you reach out and help carry the load.

Paul says when you do this, you fulfill the law of Christ. I watch the law of Christ.

It’s the law of love. Jesus gave his followers a new command. Love one another as I have loved you.

And how did Jesus love? By bearing our burdens. By carrying our sins to the cross.

By taking on himself what we couldn’t carry. When we bear each other’s burdens. We’re doing exactly what Jesus did for us.

We’re living out his kind of love in practical visible ways. Paul addresses a specific situation that tests whether love is real or fake.

In verse one of chapter 6, he writes, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the spirit should restore that person gently, but watch yourselves or you also may be tempted.”

Notice he says if someone is caught in a sin, not if someone makes a mistake or has a bad day, but if they’re actually trapped in sin, living in something that’s clearly wrong, what’s the proper response when you discover that a fellow believer has fallen into sin?

The world would say to expose them, shame them, cancel them. Legalistic religion would say to condemn them, kick them out, make an example of them.

But Paul says something completely different. Restore them gently. The word restore is important. It’s a term that was used for setting a broken bone or mending a torn fishing net.

When something is broken, you don’t throw it away. You carefully, skillfully put it back together.

That’s what we’re supposed to do with believers who fall into sin. We restore them.

We help them get back on track. We work to see them healed and whole again.

And notice the manner gently, not harshly. Not with condemnation or anger or a judgmental attitude.

Gently, with the same care you’d use handling something fragile and valuable. Why gently? Because we’re [music] all capable of the same failures.

Paul adds the crucial reminder. Watch yourselves or you also may be tempted. The person confronting sin isn’t morally superior to the person caught in it.

They’re just at a different point in their journey. Today you’re strong in an area where they’re weak.

Tomorrow you might be weak in an area where they’re strong. This humility changes everything about how restoration happens.

You’re not looking down on them from a position of superiority. You’re coming alongside them as someone who understands struggle, who knows what it’s like to be tempted, who recognizes their own vulnerability.

This approach reflects Christ’s character. Jesus was incredibly gentle with sinners who knew they were broken and needed help.

He ate with tax collectors and prostitutes. He defended the woman caught in adultery. He restored Peter after Peter denied him three times.

Jesus was only harsh with the self-righteous religious leaders who condemned others while hiding their own sin.

Paul gives another instruction that protects both love and humility in verse four. Each one should test their own actions.

Then they can take pride in themselves alone without comparing themselves to someone else. Here’s a destructive pattern that happens all the time.

People measure their spirituality by comparing themselves to others. You look at someone who struggles more than you do and you feel good about yourself.

You’re not as bad as them, so you must be doing okay. Or you look at someone who seems more spiritual than you, and you feel discouraged and inadequate.

Either way, you’re using other people as your measuring stick. Paul says, “Stop doing that.

Test your own actions. Examine your own life. Measure yourself against God’s standard, not against other people’s performance.

This does two important things. First, it prevents pride. When you compare yourself to people who struggle more than you do, it’s easy to feel superior.

At least I’m not like them. At least I don’t have that problem. But that’s exactly the attitude of the Pharisee in Jesus parable who prayed, “God, I thank you that I’m not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

That man left the temple not justified before God because his pride blinded him to his own need.

When you test your own actions against God’s standard instead of comparing yourself to others, you realize you fall short too.

You have different struggles, different weaknesses, different failures, but you’re not better than anyone else.

Second, it prevents unhealthy competition. >> [clears throat] >> Churches can become places where people compete over who’s most spiritual, who serves more, who knows the Bible better, who prays longer, who gives more.

That competition destroys community and turns faith into performance. When you focus on your own growth instead of comparing yourself to others, you can celebrate when others do well without feeling threatened.

You can be honest about your own struggles without feeling like you’re losing some contest.

This self-examination Paul describes isn’t the same as unhealthy introspection where you’re constantly beating yourself up or obsessing over every tiny failure.

It’s healthy accountability where you regularly check in with yourself. How am I doing? Where am I growing?

Where am I stuck? What does God want to work on in my life? And you do this without needing to know how you stack up against everyone else.

Right after Paul tells believers to carry each other’s burdens in verse two, he seems to contradict himself in verse 5 when he says, “For each one should carry their own load.”

Wait, carry each other’s burdens, but also carry your own load. Is Paul confused? No.

He’s making an important distinction using two different Greek words. The burdens in verse two refers to overwhelming weights, crises, major struggles, things that are too heavy for one person to handle alone, those we carry together.

The load in verse 5 refers to normal daily responsibilities, the regular duties and obligations that come with being an adult, a worker, a family member, a Christian, those each person must carry for themselves.

Here’s why this matters. There’s a difference between helping someone through a crisis and enabling someone to be irresponsible.

If your friend loses their job and can’t pay rent this month, love means helping carry that burden, maybe giving them money, letting them stay with you, helping them find work.

But if your friend refuses to work at all, and expects you to support them indefinitely while they sit around playing video games, that’s not a burden to carry.

That’s enabling irresponsibility. Each person has a load, daily responsibilities they need to handle. You need to go to work and do your job.

You need to pay your bills. You need to take care of your kids. You need to manage your own choices and their consequences.

You can’t expect other people to carry those normal responsibilities for you. And when you try to make others carry your load, you’re not exercising humility.

You’re being dependent in an unhealthy way. Love creates a beautiful balance. When someone faces something overwhelming, a crushing burden they can’t handle alone, we step in and help carry it.

But for normal daily responsibilities, the regular load of life. We respect each other enough to let people carry their own.

This balance prevents two extremes. On one side is radical independence. I don’t need anyone’s help.

I’ll handle everything myself. That’s pride. Refusing to admit we sometimes face burdens [music] too heavy to carry alone.

On the other side is unhealthy dependence. Someone else should take care of me. Someone else should fix my problems.

That’s immaturity. Refusing to take responsibility for the normal duties of life. Love operates in the middle.

Offering genuine help when people face real burdens while respecting people’s need to carry their own loads.

Paul wraps up this section with a powerful principle that applies to everything he’s been teaching.

In verses 7 and 8, he writes, “Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sws. Whoever sws to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction.

Whoever sws to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life. He uses imagery that everyone in his agricultural society would immediately understand.

When a farmer plants seeds, he gets back what he planted. Plant corn seeds, you get corn.

Plant wheat seeds, you get wheat. Plant nothing, you get nothing. You never plant tomatoes and harvest grapes.

The harvest always matches the seed. Paul says life works exactly the same way in the spiritual realm.

Every choice you make is like planting a seed. Every action, every word, every thought, every decision, you’re sewing something.

And eventually you will reap a harvest that matches what you sowed. If you sow to please the flesh, if you make choices driven by selfish desires, if you live for immediate gratification, if you give in to every temptation, you will reap destruction from the flesh.

That destruction might not come immediately. Seeds take time to grow, but the harvest will come.

Broken relationships, damaged health, financial ruin, spiritual emptiness. [music] The consequences might not be visible today or tomorrow, but they’re growing under the surface and eventually they’ll emerge.

On the other hand, if you sew to please the spirit, if you make choices aligned with God’s will, if you walk by the spirit like Paul described earlier, if you live in love and serve others, you will reap eternal life from the spirit.

Not just life after death, but abundant life now. Deep joy, genuine peace, meaningful relationships, character that lasts, and ultimately eternal reward.

Paul warns, “Do not be deceived.” Why that warning? Because it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you can sew one thing and reap something different.

It’s easy to think you can live for the flesh during the week and then show up at church on Sunday and everything’s fine.

It’s easy to believe you can plant seeds of selfishness and somehow harvest fruit of the spirit, but you can’t mock God.

You can’t trick him. The principle is fixed. You reap what you sow. This isn’t about earning salvation.

That’s still by grace through faith. This is about the inevitable consequences of how you choose to live after you’re saved.

Two Christians can both be saved by grace. Both going to heaven but living very different lives right now.

One sws to the flesh, gives in to anger, holds grudges, lives selfishly, ignores the spirit’s leading.

That person is saved, but they’re reaping destruction in their daily experience. Broken relationships, lack of peace, wasted opportunities, shallow faith.

Another believer sws to the spirit, walks in love, serves others, responds to the spirit’s prompings, bears spiritual fruit.

That person is also saved by the same grace, but they’re reaping eternal life in their daily experience, deep relationships, genuine joy, spiritual growth, meaningful impact.

The seeds you plant today determine the harvest you’ll experience tomorrow. You’re sewing something right now with your choices.

What kind of harvest are you planting for? If this video opened your eyes to the power of Galatians 5, don’t keep it to yourself.

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