Freedom In Christ (Part One)

If you have your Bible, please open then to our passage; Galatians 5:1-6.

Follow along as I read our passage today. Galatians 5:1-6:

Galatians 5:1–6 NASB 2020

1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look! I, Paul, tell you that if you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 And I testify again to every man who has himself circumcised, that he is obligated to keep the whole Law. 4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by the Law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we, through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

In Galatians 5, the apostle Paul continues his passionate plea for freedom. He longs to see men and women set free from bondage, and experience the freedom that only the gospel can bring. So, he begins with the thesis concerning our freedom, and then continues with the consequences of embracing works.

I. The Thesis Concerning Our Freedom (5:1)

Paul starts this section with his thesis.

He breaks his thesis on our freedom into a statement and then a command.

A. The Statement (5:1a)

Paul states in verse 1a: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

We have been talking about freedom for several weeks; specifically freedom in Christ. But what does it really mean to be free? What comes to your mind when you think about freedom.

If you ask others you will get different answers but most will probably have to do with their ability to enjoy doing what they like.

The Oxford Languages dictionary defines freedom as: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

That sounds good. It sounds like what we think of freedom in the US. But it isn’t biblical.

At an objective level, Christ has set us free by dying on the cross and becoming our substitutionary sacrifice. Christ has set us free from sin’s penalty, divine wrath, Satan’s domination, and the Law’s curse. Christ has set us free from having to obey the law of God ourselves in order to be saved.

Because of what Christ has done at an objective level, there comes a new subjective freedom. This involves being set free from the fear of ultimate judgment.

What this freedom has done is change our motivation, our reason of what we do. Before, we did everything for self since we were slaves to sin.

Now, our motivation is from love. Because God loves us and because Christ set us free from the penalty of sin, we have the freedom to love Him back.

B. The Command (5:1b)

Because we have the freedom to love God, Paul gives us the command to “keep standing firm.”

Standing firm means to keep living in this new freedom and do not put the yoke of slavery back on.

You have seen those movies with convicts wearing a ball and chain around their ankle. While the person can walk around, they are very limited in their movements. They either drag the heavy ball or they carry the heavy ball. Either way they go nowhere fast. They are easily caught. They can become easily entangled in just about anything.

If someone removes the ball and chain from their ankle and tells them they are free, why would they want to bend down and lock it back around their ankle? They wouldn’t.

At one time we were burdened and condemned by the Law. The consequences of the Law have been removed by Christ. So why would you want to turn around and put yourself under the Law that only condemns you?

So Paul tells us, because Christ has purchased your freedom with His life, don’t take that freedom and throw it away and put the heavy, burdensome ball and chain back on yourself, rejecting what Christ offers.

II. The Consequences of Embracing Works (5:2-6)

What happens if we decide to give up our freedom?

Paul tells us there are consequences to that decision. He gives us four consequences if we chose to live under the Law and reject God’s grace.

A. Christ Will Have No Benefit (5:2)

The first consequence of embracing works is that Christ will have no benefit.

The false teachers were teaching that believers and those who wanted to believe, had to be circumcised in order to gain God’s favor.

When we slip back into trying to earn God’s grace, we are saying that Christ’s completed work is not complete until we add our works to it. Without our works, we cannot find favor with God.

It is the same as saying that Christ is righteous but not righteous enough for me so I will make Him more righteous by being righteous myself. No matter if we try to replace Christ’s completed work or add to His finished work, we are saying that without us, Jesus could not do the job.

Have you ever done a job and as soon as you finish, someone came in behind you, redid what you did, maybe did it the same or maybe just a little different? But you stand there and watch them re-do something you just finished. How does that make you feel?

Can you imagine doing that to God? God, thanks for letting Your Son die on the cross but that just really isn’t good enough. Here, let me finish it for you.

If we do anything with the thought or idea that we must add to what God has done, then what Christ has accomplished is of no benefit to us.

B. We Will Have to Keep the Whole Law (5:3)

If we embrace works theology and say Christ’s work is of no benefit then we become bound to keeping the whole law.

The problem is we cannot keep the whole law.

When it comes to keeping the whole law, it's like trying to bake the perfect pie. You need the right ingredients and a precise recipe. Imagine using salt instead of sugar and then insisting it's still a pie! That’s like saying we can ignore certain parts of God’s law and still be 'good enough.' Just like every ingredient matters in a recipe, every part of God’s law is important for a sweet life with Him!

Paul argued that if a man was circumcised he had put himself under an obligation to obey the whole law to which circumcision was the introduction.

When we move from the righteousness of Christ to our own righteousness, we place ourselves under an obligation to obey the entire law. If Christ’s righteousness is insufficient, and we must add some of our own, it has to be a perfect righteousness in order to be acceptable to God. We cannot pick and choose which of the commands we will obey. We must obey every single one of them perfectly in order to be accepted by God.

C. We Will Fall from Grace (5:4)

Another consequence of embracing works theology is you will fall from grace.

We become severed from Christ. Some take this to mean losing one’s salvation. I think it is best understood as turning away from the gift of grace and back to the Law as a means of justification; as a means of entering into the relationship.

God cannot accept us on the basis of our own righteousness because even our best are like filthy rags.

Isaiah 64:6 NASB 2020

6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our wrongdoings, like the wind, take us away.

In chapter 3, Paul talked about clothing ourselves with Christ.

Galatians 3:27 NASB 2020

27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

When we are called by God, we are clothed by God.

God puts the righteousness of Christ on us.

Have you seen those commercials on TV where they take two white garments that are filthy and wash them in separate washing machines using different detergents? One garment comes out spotlessly clean; the other garment comes out with stains still on it. Of course, only the spotlessly clean one is acceptable.

When we are washed in the blood of Christ’s righteousness we come out spotless and acceptable to the Father. We have been cleansed on the inside out.

But when we are washed in our own righteousness we come out still dirty and unacceptable to God.

Nothing we do will earn us God’s grace and without God’s grace, we are still filthy in our sin and it’s consequences.

D. We Will Abandon Faith for Works (5:5-6)

If we continue to embrace a works theology we will eventually abandon faith for works.

Let’s look at verse 5 again.

Galatians 5:5 NASB 2020

5 For we, through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.

By faith we are waiting for the hope, the assured knowledge that we will be made perfectly righteous. This will only happen when we are face to face with Christ. Until then, we live through the Spirit by faith.

If we are not living through faith for the hope of righteousness then we are living by works trying to earn that righteousness.

Paul goes in in verse 6:

Galatians 5:6 NASB 2020

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

Faith through love is the only thing that will work and what that means is responding to God’s work and gift of grace.

Let me ask you this: What is the one thing you should do to make yourself a better Christian?

Author Paul Miller has asked this question to hundreds of people in seminars, churches and seminaries. People say, “Go to church, read the Bible, pray, study, obey, stop sinning, and so on.” Paul Miller says that no one has ever said, “Faith.”

Jesus was asked this question. After feeding the 5,000 and walking on water, the people caught up to Him and asked him what they must do.

John 6:28 NASB 2020

28 Therefore they said to Him, “What are we to do, so that we may accomplish the works of God?”

Do you remember what Jesus said? Go to church? Pray more? Read the Bible more? Stop sinning? No:

John 6:29 NASB 2020

29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”

Believe in Jesus.

Put our faith in what God sent His Son to do which was to die on the cross so that our sins may be forgiven. That He rose again from the dead so that we have that promised hope of rising again in His presence to spend eternity with God.

And the only answer about how is to respond in faith to the completed work of Christ.

Now you may be thinking that you have already entered into this relationship with God through faith and now it is time to do the work. Verse 6 might be one of the key verses for you.

Galatians 5:6 NASB 2020

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

In Christ, that means in that relationship which you entered by faith, neither circumcision or uncircumcision, meaning obeying or not obeying the Law means anything. But faith and faith alone

Yes, you responded with faith to enter into the relationship but God expects us to respond in faith each day. A Christian’s life is a life of faith. It is a life of faith, not a life of obedience.

The gospel points us to Christ. We confess our sins and acknowledge our need of a Savior whose righteousness we desperately need. We put our trust in Jesus Christ whose perfect righteousness frees us from the demands of the law.

And we put our faith in Him daily.

Without faith we will have no joy, no love. Whenever we trust our own righteousness we lose the freedom we have in Christ. We lose our joy and our love.

Some of you have lost that and know what it feels like. We can’t earn that back we can only put our faith in Christ to have it back. Joy and love are something we only have when we live by faith.

How do you recover your joy? First, you must be willing to be completely honest with yourself. You must look at yourself and see yourself as God sees you. You must see all your sin, your hypocrisy, your shame, your inability to be vulnerable.

Second, you must admit that you are a sinner. Admit your sin to God. He knows about it anyway. Confess your sin to him, and if you openly sinned against someone else, confess it to that person too.

And then, third, you must believe that Christ’s righteousness is all that you need. In fact, it is all that you will ever need. Go to the cross and thank God for Christ’s sacrifice on your behalf. Thank him for his perfect righteousness that is credited to your account.

The only place you will find your joy restored is at the foot of the cross. God meets sinners, new sinners and old sinners at the cross. That’s the only place he meets us.

And it is there at the cross that we discover freedom in Christ.

Let’s pray.