Freedom in Christ-MASTER NOTES

Preface - Why Paul to the Gentiles?

God picked one of the most legalistic people of the time, and sent THAT GUY out to the gentiles to preach the Gospel.

Paul’s journey from the pursuit of legalistic righteousness (and what that turned him into) into genuine faith in Christ, and letting go of all that, was essential for the Gospel to the gentiles.

You couldn’t really present the truth of Christ without understanding that dynamic - from works to faith. And the best person to talk to the gentiles about the freedom that comes in faith was a person who had tried really hard to do it the other way.

Preface - What is works?

This is an important question to ask. And we may not be happy with the answer.

Paul is talking about the legalistic jew. Which…doesn’t really apply to many people . But it CAN still apply to us today in a way that maybe we’re not comfortable with. We may do different things, but we do them for the same reasons they did.

The problem at hand was this. Paul was running around, preaching the freedom of the gospel of Christ.

Then there were other people following behind him. And these people added a bit onto that message.

‘Absolutely, you were forgiven in Christ. But.... If you want to continue in that forgiveness, there’s specific things you have to do’.

To the jews at the time, the answers were ‘get circumcised’, ‘follow the jewish dietary laws’, stuff like that. But the important part isn’t the what - it’s the why. The why was the really big problem.

They knew that Jesus died for their sins. But they believed that he hadn’t fully forgiven them unless they did specific things. That the Spirit wouldn’t be with them unless they were taking specific actions.

And that pushes it closer to home.

Many churches everywhere struggle with this every single week. But we don’t struggle with circumcision or dietary restrictions. The north american church struggles with, what sort of music is the exact music that the Spirit blesses? What’s the right way a Pastor should sound? What’s the right way we should arrange the sanctuary?

The moment that we start saying, ‘The Spirit won’t (BLANK) unless I do this thing...’ then we’re in the camp of works.

Now, this is important enough that it should get mentioned now. I STRONGLY believe that the Spirit will lead us to to do many things. Often, when we talk about this, pastors get accused of denying the life-changing power of the spirit and downplaying how God calls us to work.

But that’s not true. And we’ll talk about the REAL and RIGHT motivation for activity later.

But this idea of works, and the spirit of the ‘law’, it’s such a big problem that we need to spend time rooting every single fibre of it out before we can really move on.

Paul waits all the way until halfway through chapter 5 (out of 6) to talk about what living by the Spirit looks like. So he takes 5 1/2 chapters just to deal with this idea of living by our own efforts.

Chapter 1:

It’s important to recognize what approaching God through works is - it’s ‘a false gospel’.

Galatians 1:6-7 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all.”

In fact, Paul says, that anybody who preaches a gospel other than his Gospel of Freedom deserves to be under God’s curse (Galatians 1:8)

This isn’t about just, oh, we got the wrong idea. God says - if you’re doing this by works, you’re not even facing the right direction. Paul thinks the Galatians are starting to succumb to this pressure of works, and he straight up says, Galatians 3:4 “Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?”

Chapter 2

Galatians 2:21 “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!””

We BELIEVE that we’re here by the grace of God. We ACT like we’re here as a result of our good behaviour.

Paul here connects the dots for us - believing that our righteousness could be gained by our actions is the same as simply picking up the grace of God, pushing it to the side, and saying, ‘no thanks. I got this’.

He even goes so far as to say, if this process even WORKED, then Jesus’ sacrifice was worthless.

Paul is saying this in response to Peter. Peter had been working with Gentiles, but as more Jewish believers showed up, Peter started distancing himself from the gentiles.

And the issue here was, who was accepted as ‘right’ in the early church. Peter was pushing the gentiles away, and putting himself in with the jewish believers. He believed that it was by their efforts that they were justified by God.

Galatians 2:15-16 ““We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”

So Paul says, they have faith, you have faith. You both stand fully justified before the Lord, on equal footing. It doesn’t matter what works either one of you are doing.

Chapter 3

The Spirit indwells people not because of their efforts - but because of God’s forgiveness.

Galatians 3:2-5 “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?”

And there’s an important dynamic to understand here. Paul is saying - they have the spirit not because of their works, but because of their faith.

It is possible to live a works based life, and be entirely devoid of the Spirit. (In fact, it’s not only possible - I believe that if our focus is entirely on works, we WILL live a spirit-devoid life).

And not from a deceptive place either (We believe that people who focus only on works secretly don’t believe God). It’s possible to genuinely believe that God only answers you, or joins you, if you’re doing things right. And try really, really hard, and do everything you think is good - and COMPLETELY miss the Spirit.

That’s an important assumption to challenge. Because it’s the other side of the same coin. We believe that God won’t answer until we do the right things the right ways. But that also means - we believe that when we DO those things, God WILL answer us right away.

That’s the danger of works. Not just that we think we should earn our way there - but we think that God should have to respond simply because of what we’ve done, or how we’ve done it.

Faith is a relationship where God is the supreme partner, we’re ONLY here because he loves us and welcomed us in, and everything we receive or ever will receive is based simply off his generosity.

How freeing is that? Knowing that we don’t have to prove that we’re accepted - we only have to accept it ourselves.

Approaching God by works turns it into a vending machine - I put my coin in, now I get my candy bar. It moves the emphasis off God’s kindness, and onto our efforts. Something happened because of some action we took.

If you get to eat because you’re starving, and you can’t make it work yourself, and someone is generous to you - that creates gratefulness.

If you get to eat because you put money in the slot, and you’re sitting waiting for your prize to drop down - that creates entitlement.

Paul says - people STARTED the right way - how could they possibly think that they would finish a different way?

This is REALLY important. Paul’s talking about salvation and forgiveness here.

We act like the cross was a one time deal. Jesus forgave us once - but now our acceptance hinges on us doing the right things in the right ways.

Paul is saying - We started on belief, we were accepted by faith. Our continual acceptance is STILL defined by that faith. It didn’t shift at some point, where God said, ‘Ok, now I’m gonna break out my score chart and I’m going to see how well you can perform’.

We deny the cross when we approach it like that. God calls us to a life of sacrifice, one where we place ourselves continually on that cross, die to ourselves, and live completely for God and by God. But when we believe that our continued acceptance is based on our actions, we make it just about understanding a fact of information. ‘I know Jesus died for me. Obviously.’

Faith is not a fact, it’s a lifestyle. It’s not something simply to be known, it’s something to be lived!

It’s not that we were once accepted in by the sacrifice of Jesus, and now we have to work hard to stay. We are only and always ever welcomed in, every single day, by the sacrifice of Jesus. And that sacrifice is the only, the ONLY reason that we get to stay in God’s grace.

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Right foundation but the wrong direction

Galatians 3:3 NIV

Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?

Paul says - people STARTED the right way - how could they possibly think that they would finish a different way?

This is REALLY important. Paul’s talking about salvation and forgiveness here.

We BELIEVE that the cross is everything. But do we act like the cross was a one time deal. Jesus forgave us once - but now our acceptance hinges on us doing the right things in the right ways.

Paul is saying - We started on belief, we were accepted by faith.

We were accepted purely by faith

We continue to be accepted purely by faith

It didn’t shift at some point, where God said, ‘Ok, now I’m gonna break out my score chart and I’m going to see how well you can perform’.

We deny the cross when we approach it like that. God calls us to a life of sacrifice, one where we place ourselves continually on that cross, die to ourselves, and live completely for God and by God. But when we believe that our continued acceptance is based on our actions, we make it just about understanding a fact of information. ‘I know Jesus died for me. Obviously. But now, all this stuff that’s happening, it’s happening because I did the right things’.

Faith is not a fact, it’s a lifestyle. It’s not something simply to be known, it’s something to be lived!

It’s not that we were once accepted in by the sacrifice of Jesus, and now we have to work hard to stay. We are only and always ever welcomed in, every single day, by the sacrifice of Jesus. And that sacrifice is the only, the ONLY reason that we get to stay in God’s grace.

Freedom in Christ was always the plan.

Galatians 3:16–17 NIV

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.

The jews at the time, THEY belived they were the blessing to the world. They saw that promise to Abraham, and they said, yep, that’s us. Through our obedience, the entire world will be blessed.

But paul says - that promise, that through Abraham’s offspring the whole WORLD would be blessed - it doesn’t apply to the jews. It applies to Jesus - and just jesus.

The jews were saying, people will be blessed because when they come near, they’ll see us doing everything right, and they’ll know what’s right and worship God!

The truth is - we’re here to show people Jesus, not ourselves. We’re not the stars of the show. When people come in, what should floor them is the person of Jesus!

I don’t care if people think I preach right or wrong. What I care about is seeing people encounter Jesus. I feel good for a couple hours if i get ‘great job Pastor!’. I’m thinking about it all week if I hear, ‘Man, God really spoke to me today, and here’s what He said...’.

The jews claimed a special place because of their obedience. but even in Genesis, God was saying, ‘this isn’t about you at all. it’s about me’.

Chapter 4

Slavery vs adoption

Galatians 4:1-5 “What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”

Paul starts off saying - under the law, under works, we were like slaves.

Sonship - and adoption to sonship - are an entirely different beast

Slaves are designed to manage and maintain the household - sons, heirs, they’re there to inherit it. The household IS for them!

And this adoption piece is extra important. In their culture, an adopted heir was a way of the parents saying, ‘our natural kids aren’t going to cut it (or they just don’t exist). We want to personally and individually select the person who’s going to receive our household and continue our name’. Care and thought and time was put in to make sure you picked someone who was worth it.

Paul spends 2/3 of an entire letter telling the gentiles that nothing they did earned their place in God, and they had total freedom just because of God’s grace - and now he says, ‘oh, and by the way - God specifically and individually chose each one of you to be his heir’.

This meant something to the people at the time. Whether you were a jew or a gentile - the first born, the heir, that was a place of status and position. You were the one who was going to receive the most. And Paul’s message was - not by ANYTHING you’ve done, but simply because He’s good, God individually picked you each out to be his heir.

Paul explains this later.

Galatians 4:22-23 “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.”

Ishmael was born of Abraham saying, OK, I know God has this great plan for us. So we need to try really hard to make it happen.

And what came of that? There was discord, hatred, division. Hagar hated sarah, sarah hated hagar, abraham was caught in the middle.

Whenever we take something from God and try to make it happen from our own efforts - death and destruction creep in.

Isaac was the son of the promise. He was the son that was born even though that process had no physical right to happen at all. Everything about isaac’s existence had NOTHING to do with the strength or activity of anyone involved.

It was so impossible that when Sarah heard an angel tell her, she straight up laughed. And actually, that’s what Isaac’s name means.

But that’s a telling thing for us. We aren’t the spiritual heirs of the person who tried really rearlly hard to make God’s promise work. We’re the spiritual heirs of the person who had absolutely no power to do anything - and God still did it. The person who existed, not because two people tried, but because God promised.

Chapter 5

Freedom in Christ

Galatians 5:1 “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

The jews were waiting to be paid back with righteousness based on what they did. They served, they sacrificed, they worked, and so they thought they were going to receive righteousness as a payment based on that.

Galatians 5:4 “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”

In fact, Paul says, not only will you not receive righteousness - you’ve fallen away from Christ and from grace entirely

Paul says - being circumcised or uncircumcised - anything to do with our stance on efforts - has no value.

Galatians 5:6 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

and he’s taking a shot at both sides here. For sure, the jews were saying, you have to be circumcised to be accepted. But the gentiles also held up their lack of circumcision. And paul says - this whole idea of works, it’s just not worth anything to God. God’s not giving you extra credit for having done, or not having done.

But paul starts to shift. He says, there IS something we can do that matters to Christ.

Faith expressing itself through love is the core value of Christ.

And this is a HUGE phrase to unpack.

Faith

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

Expressing Itself

How are we expressing our confidence, our hope in the promises of God, through what we do?

Through Love

This one’s a kicker. Paul could have said anything. Through right living. Through knowing how to conduct a worship service. Through knowing the right songs. But he said love.

God will take a good, long, hard look at everything we’ve ever done. But the only things that will really, truly count as checkmarks on our score chart - they come from love.

and believe me, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. because this is love on God’s terms.

1 John 3:16 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

If we want to ‘work’, if we want to apply ourselves to making sure we’re doing the right things - it’s this. It’s love. It’s sacrifice for others above ourselves. It’s outward focused.

Yknow, it’s funny, the only thing that God really recognizes as valuable in our lives is also the biggest thing that Jesus did for us. He died for us. And God puts value on our love, our sacrifice for others more than anything else we could ever possibly do. because WHEN we sacrifice, WHEN we love - we look like Jesus. And that’s the point of everything we do. Without that goal- we have nothing. We ARE nothing.

And that’s where Paul starts to shift gears. It sounds like, if we spent 5 1/2 chapters saying, “what you’re doing isn’t getting you any closer!”, then NATURALLY the next conclusion is to say - so who cares what we do! We can’t LOSE standing with God, so go nuts. Sin away.

Galatians 5:13-14 “You, 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. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.””

As much as we’re called to be free - that freedom is STILL not about us. And that’s crazy.

When we desire to ‘work’ our way to God, God puts up a stop sign and says, this isn’t about your efforts. This isn’t about you. It’s about me.

But then when we embrace our freedom, and try to use it as an excuse to do whatever we want whenever we want - God puts up his stop sign again.

Complete lack of rules or expectations, and a blank slate to do absolutely whatever you want whenever you want to whoever you want. That’s not freedom - that’s anarchy.

But the point here isn’t ‘doing what I desire’. It’s doing what the Spirit desires.

Galatians 5:16—18 “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For 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. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

Paul literally says, because the Spirit and the flesh are at war - you shouldn’t go with ‘I’m gonna do whatever I want’.

And this works both ways - we shouldn’t go willy nill and be all, ‘I can do whatever I want!’

But at the same time, that also means, our first instinct to say ‘THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE TO DO AND HOW WE HAVE TO DO IT’ isn’t right either.

Paul gives two basic categories here - the acts of the flesh, and the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:19-23 “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and 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. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

And there’s a lot to say about those items there. But I think the most important thing to highlight is this. The acts of the flesh are what WE do - the fruit of the Spirt is what the Spirit does through us.

Even that word play of acts vs fruit. Paul does it again in another letter - he says

Romans 6:23Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The fruit of the Spirit - they’re guidelines as to how we can know that we’re on the right track.

It’s not about ‘doing the right things’. It’s about taking a deep look at our character and saying, ‘Am I growing in love? Joy? Peace?’ Am I practicing self control? Am I gentle?

And paul goes on to say, against such things there’s no law. We’re worried so much about doing the wrong thing. About making a choice and then learning, oh no, wait - God was against that, we messed up.

Paul says, these things - there’s no law against them. You won’t find a situation where you choose to embrace joy rather than something else and God goes, ‘oh, hold on a second there. Wrong move. Get out.’

In our efforts to make sure we never do anything wrong, we downplay a giant list of things Paul gives us that he literally follows up with ‘DO THESE THINGS AND YOU WON’T BE DOING ANYTHING WRONG’.

One of my favourite nerd shows is doctor who. At one point, two of the doctors are trapped in a room behind a door. And they work out this giant plan using time travel mechanics to try and break the door, it seems really smart. But then somebody else walks into the room. They go ‘how did you do that?’ and she goes ‘well…the door was unlocked, so....’.

God literally gives us this wide open door, and we’re trying to find ways to break it down. He says, if you want to live a life free of worrying about earning your way here, just focus on love, joy, peace, patience (etc). And we’re too busy saying, ya, but I’ve gotta break my way through proving that i’m good enough, or that I know enough, or that I’m doing enough of the right things.

And the crazy thing is. The thing we’re really worried about - that inside nature coming into corrupt. This is what paul says right after telling us to just live the fruit of the spirit.

Galatians 5:24-25 “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

All the things we try to accomplish by our own efforts and our own rules. Deep down, it’s to make sure that we’re breaking those bad parts of ourselves and feeding the good parts.

SIDEBAR - The problem is, we can’t create life by using death. Whenever a church splits, or two believers part ways because of a disagreement on something - whenever we drive someone away because we think we’re right and they’re not - we think we’re creating life. But dissension and factions - they’re on the list of acts of the flesh. Love and peace and kindness is under the Spirit.

Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

We will never be able to see the power of the Spirit if we refuse to prioritize the fruit of the Spirit. Because the fruit of the Spirit isn’t just a happy sounding list - it’s a powerful spiritual weapon. This isn’t the sunday school answer to some simple question - this is the real deal.

Paul says - the fruit of the spirit is one of the primary ways that we crucify the flesh.

Where the acts of the flesh are self-centered, the fruit of the spirit is selfless and others focused.

Where the flesh is about pleasure, the spirit is about sacrifice.

Where the flesh is about getting what WE’RE owed, the Spirit is about giving away to all.

And the life we gain by crucifying ourselves - that’s from the spirit too.

Paul just assumes it. He says, since we live by the Spirit - which is another way of saying, ‘since the very life that we’re occupying at this moment in Christ is by the power of the Spirit...’

Literally every step of this life-giving freedom is from the Spirit.

Chapter 6

Galatians 6:1-2 “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Now, there is one advantage to living rules based - it’s very, very clear when somebody’s done something bad. because there’s a rule for it.

And it’s also really, really simple to know what’s “right” and “wrong”.

The trouble is - God didn’t want it to be that way. When church, and life, are based purely off rules - there’s no need for relationship. We need God once to give us the set of rules, then after that - we can handle it ourselves.

If you have the rule that everybody should eat meat no matter what, then there’s no space for God to step into somebody’s life and say, hey, I don’t think this will actually be good for you.

Or even worse. If you’re trying to figure out what to do in life, or where to go, or what you should do - God wants that process to be a dialog. But imagine if we were just like, ya ok, here’s my extensive set of rules, I’ll just follow this flowchart until I get to the bottom, and do that. God wants to talk to us, to guide us.

So Paul knows the practicals - if we’re rejecting works-based living, then we need a system to help people who have gone a bit astray.

Paul says, if somebody goes off - the Spirit will use us to lead them back to gentle restoration.

This phrase here for ‘caught in a sin’, it’s not referring to a person who is plowing headlong into sin and living the wild life. It means a person who is generally obedient, but they’ve made a mistake.

We should watch ourselves while we help, in case we ALSO get caught up in whatever it was.

Works-based faith says, who can we get rid of who is doing something wrong. It’s a ruler, a hard line, a sharp knife.

Life by the Spirit says

Galatians 6:2 “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Because the truth is - you have no idea what kind of burden other people carry.

Part of the reason I’m so ridiculously focused on making sure we’re a welcoming and loving place for families with young children is simple - we need to reach the lost, people outside our walls, and a young mom struggling to bring a bunch of unruly kids who didn’t grow up in the church so they don’t know the “expectations”, she doesn’t need more burdens - she needs more burden carriers.

In all my years, I’ve never seen a person grow a strong faith both in themselves and their families by somebody else judging their kids. But i’ve seen it lots and lots and lots of times when somebody else loved their kids.

That person who struggles with self-respect or self-care, and drags themselves here but maybe they look unkempt. They don’t need people telling them how to dress. They need people saying, hey, we’re so glad you’re here. Welcome.

Someone who struggles with drugs, or alcohol, or addictions. They don’t need a place to be cast out of - they need a place to be welcomed into.

We will never, ever, ever usher in the kingdom of God by judging people out of it. If we try to do it that way, we’re no better than the pharisees that crucified Jesus. ‘Don’t worry Lord, we caught that Jesus guy, and we got rid of him!’

Galatians 6:12 “Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.”

Now, I think there’s two different points there. One for them, one for us.

The first is - the jewish believers at the time were trying to force people to follow the law, so that they wouldn’t be rejected by the jews who didn’t accept Jesus

These jewish believers, they wanted to have something they could boast about to their jewish non-believer friends and relatives. Look at me, i’m still faithfully following the law.

The second is - we often trade things the bible says we will face (like persecution, or the opportunity to stand before others and profess our faith) for things that we’d rather have (something to make us feel good, something to help us escape the world).

And it’s natural to want to go towards something that feels nicer for us. Something that makes us feel like we have more, or we feel better, or whatever.