Freedom is Loving Your Neighbor

All right, so this outline comes from Chester McCauley, and I kind of like it. Of course, I like all his outlines, so I'm kind of biased here. So let's see, just so I get the mouse in the right place here. OK, here we go. All right. No, it doesn't want to work for me. There we go.

OK, so he titles 13, 14, 15. basically the Christian's freedom and he has that three aspects and Bob did a great job last week and I know I'm not you know this is hopefully additional information I'm not you know I didn't cover it exhaustively but it's just some really cool things that I wanted to point out so verse 13 can be divided into the possession of freedom the abuse of freedom the dynamics of freedom and so we're going to review that have three or four charts on that and then after that We're going to talk about the verses for today, which will be 14 and 15. They kind of break nicely into two parts. One part is talking about freedom's true expression. And the second part is a warning to exercise our freedom. OK, so I don't really have a chart that I'll just read from here. So the verse 13 is, I'll just read the whole verse. I'm going to look at the first part of it. For you are called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. So, it breaks nicely into three sections, so we're going to talk about the first part.

So the part that I think is the key part of this is where the U is kind of, I'm a little bit not real strong on this, but in the Greek, the position in the Greek sentence is important, and this U is called, in the emphatic position, means U in contrast, Euclidean believers. Euclidean believers are trying to, under the law, don't you realize you were called to freedom?

That's kind of the idea. You were called as kaleo in the Greek. It's the idea that it's used by God to call or invite a person. It's an aristans, which is an event. That's salvation. You were called by God, and you were saved. Every believer is called. And it's in the passive voice, and God did it. So you were called, God has done it. He's calling out of his abundance of grace.

All believers are recipients of his gracious calling, even though they may not realize that they are. And actually, a side note, that's why we study God's word to see, to understand what God has given us, what he's called us, who we are in Christ. That's the whole reason for studying God's word to know, at least one of the many reasons, maybe, to know who we are.

And I like this contrast there, Brother Hal kind of brought it, Hal Molloy. So he's kind of talking, we were liberated before we were believer to believer. There's a contrast before and after. So he puts it this way. You were liberated from our sin nature and the law to Christ's liberty. We share in the very liberty that is Christ and we have the glorious liberty to glorify him. This wonderful thing.

So that's just kind of the first part. I'm just, little highlights of each of these sections. So the next part, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh. And this is a cool section. And actually what's neat is, there's a word here that Miles is gonna zoom in on next week. Not this week, next week. I don't know, unless he's gonna go ahead. Anyway, so opportunity is afro, afro-may.

It's a starting point. It's a, if you're into like, I don't know, as kids we had like, my boys had all these bases for their soldiers or whatever. They'd have a home base or base of operation. So this is a base. This is your base, your operating point. This is where all your soldiers march out and capture all the bad guys. So my boys would love to do that. They'd capture all the bad guys around there. So anyway, this is a base of operation.

So it says, do not turn. your liberty or your freedom into a base of operation for the evil nature. So even though we are free in Christ and our position, do we live that out in our experience, in our conduct is the question. And he says don't, and this is a warning, do not let your liberty or freedom turn into a base of operation for the evil nature. And then here's a verse, I use this verse, a parallel verse that Miles is gonna tell us about next week. He says, but sin, taking opportunity, or the space of operation, through the commandment produced in me, coveting of every kind." So Paul realizes that those who possess freedom can abuse it. If you have questions, please let me know. So he's realizing that they may not possess the freedom they have. They may not realize it. And freedom is interesting.

We think, unfortunately, even as blue, we think freedom is to do whatever we want. But that is the absolute, the worst definition you could ever have of the Christian freedom. That's absolutely, totally wrong. It is absolutely the opposite of that. It's to do what God would desire us to do. It's not what we want to do, it's what God wants us to do. I mean, it's just totally the opposite.

But our freedom in Christ is never lost. You know what's interesting is in this Galatians from our liberty to produce sin. And in Romans 7, it's sin taking opportunity through the law. That's right. So either way, the sin nature or the law can use it as a base of operation. Exactly. Exactly. That's good. Thank you. And I kind of had that earlier on about the two aspects of sin nature.

He called us out of our sin nature and the law. And men love law, even though people disobey it all the time. In reality, they want law. because they feel comfortable with it. And law is required for the unbelieving world. God has ordained government law, so we need that.

Okay, thanks Miles, that's great. Okay, so let's go on. So now the third part of this verse, and this is where it really gets neat. But through love, serve one another. So actually, it's present tense, so you can render it as Weis renders it, but through love, keep on constantly serving one another. We're going to find that this is the focus of these three verses. Love and serving are connected. They're connected, and we're to understand that.

Okay? Serve is doulos. It's to serve as a slave. And doulos, I think, originally meant the idea from birth. You were a slave from birth. and it's present tense, that's where we get the continuous, keep on constantly serving. So you could render it, the idea is you serve as slaves to one another, fellow believers.

You know, this is a tall order, because you know, if we're honest, I love all of my believer friends, I love them all, but some I do better with than others, right? I mean, you know? But I know it's just the way we are. Some people we connect with, some people we don't. But the Lord would have us be slaves to every believer. So that's something we find out we can't do. If I try to do that, I'm kidding myself. I have to depend upon the Lord to lead me in that. I can't do it my own. And actually, there's something else I want to connect with that shortly. So, Roger?

Go ahead. Sure. So we really have to define what love really is. OK. That old saying, I don't have to like Wayne, but I do have to love him. Well, it's no surprise. It's agape love, right? It's God's love. Actually, it's not even man's love. It's God's love. It's agape love, right? It's the love that looks out for the for the well-being of another. It doesn't look to you, it looks to the well-being of another. Totally different than other kinds of love, like romantic love, eros love, and things like that. So, right, this is God's love.

Good point. So, and the idea is here, in the Ephesians passage, be subject is the idea too. Not only do we love them, but we abide under, we line up under, you know, for the people in the military, You line up on it. Can you believe that you're lining up under your brother in the Lord, which may be, like you said, you may not have the best relationship with him, but the Lord says, no, I want you to, you know, that's the relationship I desire in you, and that I'm, my spirit in your life can produce that love, not you. Okay, so Macaulay says, love is expressed, and this is cool, in the desire for the well-being of another.

Boy, that's really huge. Maybe you don't get along with them well, but you do care for them. And you want the best for them. And you're helping them. Maybe they don't see it. Maybe they misunderstand you. I have a case where some people, you don't get off on the wrong foot. I have a neighbor. I offended him 35 years ago. I've lived in the same house for 40 years. So 35 years ago, I offended this guy. And it was just a stupid thing.

But he's never spoken to me since. His wife speaks to me all the time, but he never says a word to me. He looks the other way. So I don't know whether maybe he's that kind of guy to start with. I never had a relationship before, but just something happened and I said, anyway, you can see the result. Sometimes things don't work out, but I still try to do kindness for him, but I have never closed that gap. Anyway, I don't feel good about that.

Anyway, freedom is desiring the well-being of another. Another way to say it. Pretty cool stuff here. And this whole section is all about that freedom and love and service. They're all kind of interconnected. Okay, so that's the last part of this verse. Then our brother Hal had a little summary, not Hal, it was actually Merriman, excuse me. This is from Merriman. Okay.

The Christian is free in order that he may serve other Christians. There's a definition of we're free in order that we may serve other Christians. Wow. True liberty expresses itself in love for one another. Christ, and this is an example, Christ is a perfect example of this, right?

He was totally free of the domination of sin, of the flesh, right? He had no sin nature. He was holy and righteous and just. But he knew maximum liberty, right? Think about in his life here on the earth, he walked, he washed people's feet, he served one another. He was constantly serving one another. He took himself, himself mentality of a servant, and the ultimate thing, he gave his life on the cross. And because he loved the church, he gave himself for it. And a little summary here.

Where agape love, God's kind of love, self-sacrificial love, is a motivating power, doerless service is without constraint, hence not an irksome burden. So it's not to be, this is not to be a burden. This is not to be a burden, it's to be, you're doing it out of love for the well-being of your brothers and sisters. Okay.

All right, so that completes a short review of 13. Okay, so let's go on to, back to my outline again. So we've gone through the possession of freedom, the abuse of freedom, it's dynamic. So now we're gonna get into today's verses. freedom's expression, either true expression or he gives a warning about how you could misuse, how you could not use your expression of freedom correctly. So here are verses for today.

It says, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you're not consumed by one another. Well, that last part is pretty strong, right? You think, wow. Hopefully we'll be able to see that. Okay, so let's move into the verse here. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. So interlinear, word for word from the interlinear. For the entire law has been summed up in one word.

This is pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Four is the gar, and the original is the idea. It expresses a sense of, for a reason, or a sense of because. And actually, Hal had it here. Four tells us the reason for the command to be slaves to one another by love. So this is telling us the reason for that. What's the reason for that?

And it's gonna be that God, that's God's, that's God's will, if you will. If you will. Read out of the statement. For the entire law, or you could say, it's this word pos in the Greek, it's actually, it's all inclusive, it's everything, nothing is excluded, has been summed up as to make full, when used of a task or a course of action, fully performed, and it's actually in the perfect tense, which is the idea, it's a done deal, it's a permanent state now, past action with abiding result, so it's now a permanent state, for the entire law has been summed up permanently, you might say. In the statement, and the statement's going to follow here. So Weiss says in his commentary, he says, in keeping the following statement, one is complying with the whole law and its demands.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So it's a present tense, so again, you continue to love your neighbor. You don't love your neighbor sometimes, you continue to love your neighbor. You say, well, you're making this impossible, right? Like in my case, I continue to love my neighbor, but it's not returned, even though I try to do that.

OK, I wanted to see something here. Roger? Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. We have written down Leviticus 19, 17 to 18. OK. It says it's repeated in Galatians, because Paul is not reimposing the law, but reaffirming a moral truth. that transcends the Mosaic covenant. Okay, it does transcend that because he's going to say that love is what the believer in the church, this is what it's all about, love, and that's how we're going to fulfill the law. I'm going to have about five other verses about this whole concept. He repeats this many, many times.

I'm thinking about something, because obviously this is exactly what the next hour is about, being dead to the law. I probably shouldn't put this in my notes, maybe I'll add it in as I go here. Being dead to the law, or separated from the law, or free from the law, doesn't mean that right stops being right and wrong stops being wrong. You know, right and wrong, or the knowledge of good and evil we're going to talk about, is always consistent, because God's character is consistent. And so even though we're not under the law, we're not under a principle of law, there's still a need for righteousness in us. And what this is saying is that righteousness looks like this, but you're not going to get it through being under the law.

It's got to come from outside of you, right? Righteousness is going to come by grace. God, and that's something I learned recently when we were going through the last part of chapter six in Romans. God is teaching, God is instructing us in grace. You know, grace is so opposite to what we think.

We say we gotta have a little bit of law, right? I mean, you just, this can't work without some law. Even believers, we gotta have a little law here. But no, he says, grace is the operating principle. It must work through grace. So as we go through, the epistle of Paul especially, he wants to teach us how grace operates. And this is another one of those cases where this is how grace operates.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And the whole law is summed up in that. You think, well, it doesn't, off the top of your head, you say, well, you know, isn't killing wrong? Isn't, isn't, so the whole Ten Commandments, aren't those all wrong? Yes, they are. They're absolutely right. But he says, The way you're going to be able to live a righteous life is under grace, not by under law. Anyway, let me continue on here. Okay, and actually, here's what struck me. So I said, for the gentleman here, the ladies get a break here.

You only have to love your neighbors. But your husband has another thing on top of that. Not only does he love his neighbor, he has to love his wife. Not just the little old romantic love. No, no, no, no, no, no. Forget about that, guys. No. Just as also Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.

So I looked at this and I said, wait a minute. I got two commands I cannot keep. I can't love my neighbor like I should. I've already proven that. You know, my neighbor doesn't talk to me anymore. To be honest, I never talked to him before either, so I haven't improved. He may not have talked to me ever anyway, but I made sure he never talked to me.

His wife does talk to me, so I guess I have some good grace. Anyway, so I said, wow, look at this. Here's another command that all the men say. I know Mike Doyle. does a wedding service, he points us out. Here's your charge, man. This is what the Lord wants you to do. And if you aren't shaking in your boots and say, I cannot do that, Lord, you're a fool. You're absolutely a fool.

Isn't it true that as far as a married couple, a man is to love his wife, But it's never said of the wife to the husband. She is just to respect the husband. I know, isn't that interesting? Yeah, we don't have to love him. No, that's absolutely true. Yeah, I always kind of scratch my head about that. But you know, I think that just kind of, the Lord doesn't have to command the wife to love her husband. Really, I don't think that never. Now, maybe in time. But initially, usually, at least I speak for myself. It's wonderful. I never felt unloved, I tell you that. I never have felt unloved. Anyway, so I don't know, it doesn't seem to be a problem for the woman. Talk to the Lord about that. I'm not sure I can give you a lot of scripture to why that's the case, but it seems like... Hey, Roger? Go ahead, you have an answer, Andrew?

Yeah, I've thought about that a lot, and I think that it's because The commands are different to a husband and wife because women are built, created differently. Amen. They have an embedded ability to love, I think, like when they have a child. And men don't have that component, I think, naturally. Yeah, I agree.

I've often thought that you can't, you know, Christ is portrayed, God is portrayed, Christ is portrayed by a Christian husband and a Christian woman together. Together they portray it. Separate they don't. Because a woman brings something that a man can never bring, and a man brings something that a woman can never bring.

Just what you said, Ed. I totally agree with you on that. Each of them contributes, you know. So I don't know if he doesn't have to tell them to love. Go ahead. One last thing, your neighbor isn't talking to you, but is your wife talking to you? Yes, she is. I hope so. Thank you, Andrew. All right, so let's go on here.

You can only keep loving, you know, this is only through Christ. He lives his life through you. And then Macaulay says, all the law is fulfilled where one precept is observed. Kind of restating this verse here. So now I want to get into, here's a couple of other verses we're talking about. This concept shows up a lot in Romans. So here in Romans, we're going to see it.

In Romans 13.8, owe nothing to anyone except to love one another. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. Kind of restating it a little bit differently. And then he lists. Right after that, in verse 9, he says, he lists the commandments, I think it's 6, 7, 8, and 10 or something like that. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not covet. And if there's any other commandment, it is summed up in the saying, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Then he goes on to say, he just keeps hammering this point. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love It's a fulfillment of law. Boy, you say, man, that is just, he says it over and over. And then how, how Malloy added here, love is the sum and substance of the Mosaic law. So as, as amazing as it is in, in the age of grace, love is what God is looking for. And it's his love, not man's love. And did you define neighbor?

Oh, yeah. It's coming. Oh, OK. You saw the charts. OK. I'm getting ahead. One chart ahead. OK. All right. All right. OK. So who is your neighbor? I told you about my neighbor, right? OK. It's more than just the person next door, right? I told you about that. OK. It's literally, it's the one near. And the word in the Greek, I forgot what it is. I wrote it down. Anyway. Plesion. a near one, anyone in your immediate sphere of influence is your neighbor. That's probably a good definition.

Okay, at this point, I wanted to share something, and it turns out that, hopefully we have time here, I think we do. Okay, Bonnie and I, we watch YouTube, and on YouTube, they have old TV series from the 1950s and 1960s, and one of the ones we like I'm sure most of you, I'm not sure the readers do, old TV game show called To Tell the Truth. Have any of you heard of that show? I bet the readers haven't. Well, the show, it would present three contestants, most of you, I'm sure the rest of you know what it is, three contestants and they would, one of them would be the actual person.

So they have a famous person or not so famous person. So they would read their biography. So one would play himself, so to speak. Other two would be pretenders. They'd be coach pretenders. So they would come up, and there'd be a panel that would ask them questions.

It doesn't sound too much fun at the moment, but it was actually quite well done. So you could have, I don't know, Olympic star. You could have somebody that people didn't know that well. So they wouldn't know them by looks. And they disqualified themselves. They didn't know. So they would ask certain persons, they'd ask questions of these people to see if they could figure out the true identity. So the one person had to tell the truth, the rest of them didn't have to tell the truth.

So anyway, in this show, we came across, and you've heard that there's this gentleman called, he was a British soldier named Ernest Gordon. And he wrote this book, which they made a movie from, Through the Valley of the Kwai, Bridge in the River Kwai, maybe you've heard of it.

Anyway, these were British and maybe Australian, I'm not sure they're to me Americans, but soldiers that were in a camp, in a prison camp. The Japanese were the, had the prison camp. It was in Thailand. So conditions were just, you know, a large number of British and they forced them to build bridges and rivers and all kinds of, not rivers, railroad tracks. So anyway, so Gordon, Ernest Gordon, it doesn't, I don't know, Bonnie's reading the book, she actually has the book if you're interested. So let me just read you a couple of statements here.

Many of the prisoners, so what happened is, so actually they were so harsh on them, they basically, Terrible conditions, brutality, torture, and so on and so on. Many of the prisoners started acting like the guards. They would be as bad as the guards were. They would fight among one another. It was just kind of chaos in that.

So Ernest Gordon, apparently he was a Christian, but not a strong Christian. He and a couple other Christians started praying, and they started having Bible studies. They had Bibles amazingly, and they started having Bible studies. They started showing kindness to one another.

And over time, the whole tenor of that POW camp changed. Pretty soon, this is incredible, they had prayer meetings, they had church services, they put on plays. Maybe they did Easter, Christmas plays. They even had an orchestra. And it came about because they cared for their brothers that were dying and with such awful conditions.

And the ultimate thing was, when they were liberated, And there were trains leaving this area, trains with prisoners, with Japanese, now are interred, now they're captured. And then they had the Allies freed the British and the Australians. They were on trains. So the trains stopped. So you had the Japanese, who were the aggressor, they were the enemy, and you had the ones that were the POWs. Two trains up the same track, the POWs got out of the train and helped and showed kindness to the Japanese captors. And they could not believe it. They said, don't do it. Get away. I don't want it. They could not believe that these POWs would do that. So pretty amazing. So this fits really well. Sorry, I carried it away there with the next couple of verses here.

So what's the standard? What's the standard for your love under grace? And pretty familiar verses kind of go along with the story. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. And then the next verse is pretty amazing. This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friend.

Okay, all right. So let's go on. Go ahead. Just a question. Are you noticing the difference that under the law, we love as we love ourselves? And here, your verses in John that you just gave, the divine love, we love as Christ has loved. Yes, yes. That's good, Roy. Very good. It's Christ's love, right? And it's actually, at least I can go back here for a second. Sorry. Somehow I got it. Anyway, no, I agree, Roy.

That's great. That's great. Okay, so here's the change. That verse 15 kind of changes. But it's assumed to be true. Yeah, you're right. And this is, under grace, it's, before the picture was, you were to love, it's the reciprocal kind of love, right? But when Christ comes on the scene, that totally changes, like you point out, Roy. We love as we have been loved, right? Like you pointed out, that's great. Okay, all right, so now let's go on to the negative part. Okay, so it reads, but if, assumed to be true, but if, as is the case, you're abiding and devouring one another.

So apparently it seems like In the Galatian church, something was going on here that he doesn't really talk a whole lot about, other than this verse, it seems like. So bite is the idea to, metaphorically, of the wounding of the soul or rendering with reproach. Devour is to eat and swallow up a person. So actually, both these words, in the classical Greek, according to Weiss, are talk of wild animals and deadlies where they bite and devour one another. And it's his brothers in Christ. So I like Constable's comment here.

Apparently, the believers who advocated grace and the believers who advocated law bitterly opposed one another in the Galatian church. It seems like they were at each other. And so Paul is saying, you know, that's not who you are. That's not what it's about. Even though you believe strongly in your position, the Judaizers, they believed strongly that you had to have the law. The ones that were not Judaizers, they believed strongly that it was under grace.

And apparently that led to blows, so to speak, almost, if you will. And then here's his warning. Beware lest by one another you are destroyed. And it's to look out or take heed is the idea of beware. And then this consumed is another one of those terms that we use of animals. It's the swallow up. It's the destruction of the person of their well-being. So pretty harsh words here where he says that they're biting and devouring and they're consuming one another. Say Roger?

Sure, go ahead. That illustration you gave of your neighbor, I don't know the situation there. But for him not to talk to you for 40 years, that's a definition of being consumed. How in the world can a person have that attitude for 40 years and still live with himself? That's consumed. Okay, well that's interesting.

I did not know that. I appreciate that thought. I don't know. You know, sometimes you don't know all... and maybe he's... I don't know. I don't really know the guy at all. I know his wife. His wife, she actually remarried. This is her second husband. So we've been there for 40 years. So we know people have come and gone and her husband died.

He actually might have been a believer. It was interesting. Kind of a really interesting thing because she mentioned that he got involved with the Jesus freaks back in the 60s. And she had mentioned that. I don't think she used to believe that. Is that right, Monica? I don't think so.

But anyway, that was kind of interesting. And then she remarried. And this new guy came along. And then, of course, I had to. Anyway, good point. I appreciate your thought there. So Paul is cautioning us to love one another. Paul is cautioning them, both sides. Look at it. The Judaizers and the non-Judaizers don't bite and devour one another. That's not going to show Christ's love. It can never.

And actually, interesting point that Constable pointed out, this is the only sin that Paul warns the Galatians to avoid. I haven't actually checked that out totally, but I don't remember off the top of my head. So you think about the Corinthian church. He had lots of things about the Corinthian church, right? There are all kinds of bad stuff going on. For the Galatian church, this is the only thing that he points out, only sin that he points out. So I take Constable in his word there. OK. So a couple more things I wanted to say here. All right. So then I had, this is from our brother, from Hal again, just kind of talking about the law. I thought this was really excellent.

What does the law do in a believer's life? What is the law like in a believer's life? And he says here, law is a killing and destroying power, not because the law is bad, but because our sin nature is. Our sin nature and the law are going to butt heads, so to speak, and that's going to produce not good things. The law exposes and inflames the sin nature. The law was not given to the new man in Christ. Grace was given to him. The law was given to the old man to reveal his sinfulness. The law could never justify anyone the law could never sanctify anyone.

All right, and then I had, I go to my favorite chart, and Andrew, see my new top part? Andrew and I went back and forth about, you know, final thought thing, what would look cool? He sent me one. I think this is an improvement. Andrew, what do you think? Oh yeah, that looks good. Okay, so this is the final thought. Nice! That's Carolyn. I approve. Carolyn. Okay, thanks Carolyn. Thank you so much. Nice scene, right? Okay. Alright, thanks so much. Okay. Alright, so a few more thoughts.

The only way anyone can manifest love toward others is when Christ is the object of his heart, when he walks in God's grace, and not under law. The only way anyone can manifest love toward others is when Christ is the object of his heart. He walks in God's grace and not under law. Under grace, Christ's life is manifest and characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. It's Christ's life. That's what was seen in that concentration camp. That's what made the difference among those POW people, gentlemen. And finally, under law, self is manifested and characterized by abiding and devouring and consuming. Well, actually not too bad.

Any final thoughts? Thanks for your sharing of that. Well, as you go ahead to verse 16, where it says, walking by the Spirit, it says, love therefore is not a feeling to someone, but a fruit that emerges from walking by means of the Spirit. We're going to see, actually I didn't really point out, we're going to see how this kind of flows in, loving one another flows in to walking by the Spirit, because if you aren't walking by the Spirit, you can't produce God's love, right? It won't be coming out. So that's critical. It's critical to the... How can these verses be made true in your life if you're not walking by the Spirit? Very true.

Okay, let's close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Father. And thank you for our time today. Pray for following service. Pray for Myles as he brings us your word. Thank you for your marvelous grace. In Christ's name, amen.