But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. (ESV)

Have you ever seen an animal who has been caged its whole life? When the door is opened, and they are free to go, they stay in the cage. They don’t know anything else, so they won’t leave the comfort of their cage.  

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People can be much the same. We are invited into freedom by Jesus, but we stay in our cages because it’s what we know. We stay chained by addiction, anger, sadness, feelings of unworthiness, loneliness, and a host of other things because it’s what we know. We fail to step out in freedom because our cage is comfortable.  

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But what Paul is trying to tell the church of Galatia is that they are FREE. You see, with all the Gentile converts, the Jewish followers were trying to say that the Gentiles had to adhere to the same laws as they did. But that wasn’t the truth that was preached to the Galatian Christians, both Jew and Gentile alike. The Jewish Christians didn’t have to stay in a “cage” by rigidly adhering to the law, hoping to earn the grace of God.  

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Paul gives a good picture of what this might look like by contrasting works of the flesh versus fruit of the Spirit. In Galatians 5:19-20, Paul gives us a list of just a few works of the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery (witchcraft) conflict, jealousy, anger, selfish ambition, and on and on and on. Each of these works are all about self – instant gratification, self-promotion, and self-satisfaction. Conversely, the fruit of the Spirit are, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" – which all focus on others and how to serve and love them.

Notice something cool here: When Paul is talking of the flesh, he uses the plural form of works, but when he speaks of the fruit of the Spirit, he uses the singular form of fruit – as in, the fruit of a certain kind of tree.

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You see, we can’t pick and choose what fruit we wish to demonstrate or work on. The Spirit-led life will produce this kind of fruit as a whole – this is not a list of must do’s, rather it’s a description of what living in the Spirit actually looks like. If it were a list, we could cherry pick, and it would end up looking a lot like being under the yoke of the law. We would strive to improve in one area, thinking we had control of that, doing more acts of gentleness or kindness as though checking off some list. If I try harder and do more of “xyz,” God will love me more, and I’ll be more “in the Spirit.”  

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That sounds a lot like how the ancient Jews viewed the law. God gave them Ten Commandments and 613 laws that they then added thousands of extra rules to in an attempt to control.  God knew that even the ones given straight from him would be difficult for them to completely follow, which is why his plan all along was to send Jesus to carry that burden for us. In verse 1 of chapter 5, Paul says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Jesus Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” They didn’t need to continue to strive to do all the “right” things to earn God’s love, and they certainly shouldn’t put that bondage on Gentiles who were now grafted into the family.  

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But, this freedom did not mean that they should just succumb to every whim of the flesh either. “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). Keep following me here, as verse 16 says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” When we are walking in the Spirit and by the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit are attributes we will naturally demonstrate. When we take on the yoke of the Spirit, we walk right out of our cages and into the power of our risen Savior.  

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Walking in the Spirit is freedom, and it looks like, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Where have you gotten so comfortable in your cage that you are missing out on the freedom offered through the Holy Spirit? What would it look like to walk right on out of that cage and into freedom today?

Jesus, may we walk in the power of your truth – in your freedom ~ AMEN!