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In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, for freedom, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Saint Paul, in his epistle to the saints of God in Galatia, is emphasizing this fact, this gift, this truth of our Christian freedom, and I want to think about it this morning in two ways. First, what are we free from, and then what are we free for?
First, what are we free from? This is what Paul has been wrestling with and teaching about for the first four chapters, and especially as we consider the enemies that we face as Christians: the world, and the flesh, and the devil, or if you like, sin, death, and the devil, that we are free from bondage to these three things.
Free from the bondage to death. Remember we’ve been talking about this a lot, how Hebrews tells us that to be afraid to die is to be in demonic bondage, and Jesus has set us free from that fear. He said, “I’ve conquered death, I’ve made a way through death for you, that Christ is risen.” He is risen indeed, and that death has no more power over you.
That Jesus has set you free from the slavery to sin. And Jesus says, “Whoever commits a sin is in bondage to sin, is a slave to sin,” but Jesus has set you free from that slavery. He’s forgiven your sins. Sin has no more claim on you. He set you free from the devil. He’s destroyed the devil. Jesus says, “Remember, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
But there’s an even more difficult freedom, which Paul has been talking about, and this is a theological slavery that the Lord wants to give to us, and this is the slavery of the righteousness that comes by works. This is a tricky one, and so Paul has to spend quite a bit of time dealing with it, and we should think about it as well, because all of us are geared in such a way that we think that we can save ourselves by our own efforts.
This happens whenever you see someone going out on the street and asking people if they’re going to go to heaven. Even the people who don’t believe in heaven think that they’re going to go there. And you ask them, how? How are you going to get there? How are you going to be saved? And they say, “Well, because I’m a good person, because I’ve tried hard, because I’ve done more good than evil.” I don’t know. You know, we just generally think of ourselves as, at least of our own efforts, as if we can achieve some sort of standing before God, as if we could stand on the judgment day by our own works.
This is what was happening in Galatia. Paul had come and preached the glorious gospel that Christ has done it all. He has worked our salvation. He has won for us the favor of God. He has clothed us in His own righteousness so that now we’re ready and fit to stand before on the judgment day with nothing to fear, and that that is all by grace through faith without any works, apart from any works that we’ve done or could possibly do, that we’re saved by grace, by God’s free merit, that everything is a gift.
And then Paul left, and the church was rejoicing in this truth. And then other teachers came from Jerusalem, the Judaizers, and they said, “Well, Paul didn’t have it all right. Maybe he was good on how you become a Christian, but you’ve got to add something to it. You have to do your own works; you should probably be circumcised and keep the law of Moses.”
And Paul hears about this. He hears that some had believed this preaching, that they became Christians by grace, that they stayed in the faith by their own works. And Paul writes and says, “Who has deceived you, O foolish Galatians? If I or an angel from heaven preaches a different gospel than what you heard, let them be cursed.” The Gospel, the freedom that God gives to us, is completely the work of Jesus.
We have this doctrine of works as like a—it’s like the default operating system, we’re born with it. It’s like when you get a phone and it has all this stuff on there, that’s how works righteousness is to your own conscience, to your soul. We just think that we can manage somehow to stand before the Lord by our own works, and the answer, dear friends, is no. The gospel sets you free from that error. It sets you free from that life of trying to be good enough to stand on your own two feet before the judgment seat of God.
It’s impossible anyways. You are free from striving to win God’s favor. He is already pleased with you. He already delights in you. He already loves you. All of your sins are forgiven. Heaven is thrown wide open. On the judgment day, it’ll be as difficult for you to make it into heaven as it was for Jesus to make it into heaven. Can you imagine?
I think we just imagine this very differently, that when Jesus ascended into heaven, the gates were thrown open and he was welcomed in there, but when we get to heaven, it’s going to be like an interrogation. The gates are closed, and our entrance in there is precarious. So there’s the same joy that the Father has in receiving the Son back into eternal glory; He has in receiving you because you have His righteousness, His perfection, His peace, His holiness—it covers you so that the Lord delights in you.
This is our Christian freedom. This is our Christian joy, and this is our Christian hope. The question is, what do we do with it? Why is it that the Lord leaves us here? Why doesn’t He just baptize us into heaven and maybe leave one person behind to do the baptizing and then everyone else gets to go, right? Right? Sins are forgiven. Eternal life is ours. We are there. Why does the Lord have us still here battling against the world and the flesh and the devil? Why has He given us this freedom and given us this life?
This is what Paul talks about starting in chapter 5. Verse 13 says, “You were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” You are not free so that you can do what you want. You are not set free so that you can pursue your own desires. You are not set free so that you can live a life of what Paul says to the Philippians, what he calls belly service, the idolatry of the stomach, chasing after your own lusts. That is not why the Lord has set you free. He has set you free so that you can live, and serve, and love, and die in joy and peace.
There’s a battle that happens in each one of us as a Christian. There is the flesh, which wants to gratify its own desires, and Paul listed the works of the flesh: that’s 19, verse 19—sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warned you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
You are not free to simply pursue the desires of your flesh, no. But you are set free to chase after those things that lead to life. You are led by the Spirit. And listen to what that sounds like. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against these things there is no law. So dear saints, we are set to stand in the freedom in which we are set free.
Paul says, let no one take it from you. Let no one convince you that God is mad at you, that His love has to be earned. Let no one put you back on that treadmill of working to make God happy with you. Don’t do it. Rejoice that your sins are forgiven, and let that joy spill over now into a love for those that the Lord has given you. That our freedom is not used to serve the flesh, but to serve one another in the Lord’s name, to live and die in this service.
So that if we are living by the Spirit, we walk by that same Spirit. May God grant it for Christ’s sake, amen. And the peace of God, which passes all that your mind can do, guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.