As Paul has just written to the Galatians about the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, he understands that we will not always display the fruit of the Spirit perfectly in our lives. Sometimes we or those around us will give in to the works of the flesh. Paul instructs us in two ways that we should approach a fellow believer who is in sin. First of all, we should approach with a spirit of gentleness. Part of this, of course, would be in accordance with Matthew 18 in approaching our brother or sister alone to discuss their sin. In addition, note that we are not to just approach them for the sake of revealing sin but for the purpose of restoring them.

The amazing reality of the Christian life is that God Himself indwells all those who have looked to His Son by faith through His Holy Spirit. This is truly remarkable if you take a moment to think about it. No other religion in the world believes this. Consider it for a moment: God not only condescended to come from the infinite heights of heaven’s throne to the earth He made in order to redeem sinners through His Son's work, but He also indwells those same individuals through the power of the Holy Spirit, to transform them to be more like Jesus. We call this sanctification. If you have believed in the Lord Jesus by faith, the Spirit of God dwells in you; you are sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). Are you walking by the Spirit? Paul wants the believers in Galatia to live out this new reality. His thesis statement for this section is found in verse 16, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Let’s compare the works of the flesh with walking by the Spirit.

What does it look like to live in the freedom of the gospel? Galatians 5 answers that question for us. Paul begins chapter 5 with a powerful truth: “Christ has set us free,” followed by an urgent appeal: “stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (v. 1). In continuing his defense of the gospel, Paul emphasizes that if the church in Galatia insists on adding circumcision as a necessary requirement for justification before God, then the work of Christ will be of no advantage to them. They will be falling back into slavery, back into legalism. Walking in freedom means resting in the finished work of Christ and loving others well as a result.

We live in a world that values personal identity. We identify ourselves and others by pronouns, tattoos, sexual preference, political party, color of skin, and a hundred other varieties of differentiation. However, all these self-identities are frivolous and vain. Identity politics is the force that draws people away from each other instead of pulling us together. “I’m this, and you’re that, I’m from here and you’re from there…” Can you see us cannibalizing ourselves? But we are more than we think we are and we always have been. Our deepest identity can only truly be found in one place: Jesus Christ! The entire book of Ephesians is a testimony to this truth. We are no longer defined by things that fragment us from each other, but by being one new creation and one new humanity in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:14-19). Only in Christ can we truly find ourselves. We might have all kinds of struggles and engage in all types of sin, but God is constantly calling us upward and home. This is the gospel. This is the call of Jesus: repent of sin and turn towards Him. Any other form of identity will be our demise. Only in turning to Jesus will we find our salvation.

Entering a dark room can be an uncomfortable experience. You don’t know where the furniture is and the danger of hitting a knee or a toe on the corner of a bed or dresser is a real problem. So what do you do to alleviate this situation? You turn on the light. Light exposes all things that are hidden by darkness. You no longer have to fear the bumps in the night when you can see clearly. This is the point that Paul makes to God’s people in this passage.

One of the lures of social media is the promise of being able to raise your social status among your fellow humans. The places you go, the things you know, and even what you eat can all be displayed for the sake of picking up more approval in the form of “likes, shares, and subscribes.” But the most important status change is the one that, as sinners, we cared least about: our status with God. Interestingly, it’s the one status that we have no control over changing! In this passage, Paul further explains how we have become “sons of God,” and why we should never want to go back to our old status of slavery.

Some sections of Scripture can be read more quickly and understood more easily than Galatians 3. Paul is traversing 2000 years of God’s covenant dealings with people, without breaking a sweat, so if you are trailing him, panting and out of shape, you are not alone! Here, Paul parries and counters arguments from the Judaizers while helping the Galatians to understand how much they have inherited by faith in Christ.

Galatians 3:10-18 

Galatians 3:5-14 Part 2