WARNING PREACHY – 12/20/2015 (ADVENT 4)

¹³You, 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. ¹⁴For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

¹⁶So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷For 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. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

¹⁹The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

(Galatians 5:13-26)

In verse 16 the Apostle Paul instructs, “…walk by the Sprit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” and then in verse 15; “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

There is much in this dangerous world that would be fixed immediately if we humans would understand the spiritual reality of our situations; if each of us would see the Child in the Manger as not just a human baby but a divinely spiritual being whose only purpose was to die on the cross.  If we would understand Matthew’s statement that this child is called Emmanuel (which means God with us) we could see that the Christ baby was not just a physical being but a spiritual one.

Verse 17 points out that our flesh and our spirits are in conflict with one another.  And if we will recognize it, this is true of the Christ as well.  As we observe the babe that became a man, we can see the many physical everyday (and some not so every day) situations that he handled with the eyes of faith through the Holy Spirit who guided him.

As we prepare ourselves to celebrate the birth of the Christ child on Christmas day, let us recognize that the life that was given us is our model.  We who are physical fleshly beings, the offspring of Adam, are spiritually united with Christ at the foot of the Cross.  Jesus who has been put to death in the body has been made alive spiritually (1 Peter 3:18) as the “first of many brethren.”   

The babe in the manger is the hope of all mankind if only mankind will recognize that he sets us free from the death of the flesh and gives us new birth and freedom in the Spirit:  Freedom to love sacrificially which is ironically opposite of many people’s attempts to right the evils of this world.