The Gospel in Galatians

What’s going on Port City family and friends? My name is Tanner and I am excited to continue in our series 13 Letters with you. Somebody say 13 Letters. This week we dive into Galatians. What a book. I hope you had a chance to read it this week, if not that is okay. We want to encourage you that if one book is particularly grabbing you during this series, keep living in it and studying it and swimming in it. Each of these letters has carried me during different seasons of my life. Maybe God’s message to a particular church is the one you need in this season. We have 13 Letters, but only 1 gospel. So if God is encouraging you or challenging you in a unique way during this series, lean into that. Okay? I want to pray and then we will dive into today’s sermon.

Father, thank you for your Word. God faith comes through hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ. We pray specifically that your Word would break through our rule-keeping hearts that want credit for what we do. We want a self-salvation project apart from you God and we hear what we want to hear. Would you break through that today. Would you open up grace. Gift righteousness. Showcase yourself as the hero and rescuer you are. We pray this in the name of Jesus trusting that you Holy Spirit are going to break through the fog. Amen.

Have you lost your mind? Have you lost your mind? Do you remember the first time a parent or teacher or coach said that to you? I remember being a teacher and occasionally having to step out of the room for something and coming back in to see students straightening up and looking at me while looking back at a student. Occasionally you’d come in to a student of their seat or standing on their desk doing something crazy. And the natural question would come out, have you lost your mind? And when we think of that phrase, we think of a moment where someone is doing something silly or out of character and the phrase snaps them back. In today’s letter to the churches of Galatia, Paul is asking them have you lost your mind? Now, here’s the difference between our usual experience with hearing that and how Paul means it. Paul isn’t mad at one bad decision they made. Paul got a report that they were entertaining a different gospel than the one he preached. This fake gospel, as we will see, isn’t saying Jesus doesn’t exist or didn’t die on the cross, but is trying to make the trust of the person who says they believe in Jesus not in God’s saving activity towards them in how Jesus died, they heard the message, repented, and believed and now live with Him, but in their decision to trust their submission to being circumcised. They were drifting from focusing on Jesus’ crucifixion to their own circumcision. So for Paul, he is the home inspector who just walked into your house, and he sees mold in the corners of your room which could damage your families health. He is the chemical specialist that is picking up a smell in your factory that means gas is getting in your people’s lungs. He is the doctor who says your blood is infected. It’s not as simple as you made one bad decision but you have willfully submitted to something that is in the current process of killing you. Someone say submit. So is Paul mad at the false teachers? For sure, as we will see. But he is more mad that they once were so healthy, but now they have chosen to submit to this false gospel. You see, the gospel is all about freedom. The gospel sets us free and teaches us how to be free. But the second we submit to a false gospel that shifts the focus from Christ to ourselves, we abandon our freedom. So my hope for us today whether we have been following Jesus for a while, or don’t yet know Him, is we would see that freedom is a gift given by God, and it is a life we live with God. So all of our eyes should shift to Him today. We have 3 points. The potential of freedom. The obstacles to freedom. And the path to freedom. If you’re ready, let me hear you say, I’m ready.

The Potential of Freedom (Galatians 2:20, 4:6-7, 5:24-25, 1:1, 2:6, 5:13-14, 2:11, 5:1)

There are really 2 types of freedom at play throughout Paul’s letter. The first is a vertical freedom. And the second is a horizontal freedom. Let’s start with the vertical dimension.

The one verse that best captures Paul’s view of his life is Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This letter was written around AD 49 to all of the churches in the region of Galatia, which you can see on our map here. And Paul writes this letter from Antioch to the people he once shared the gospel. The message he had spread all ovfer that whole region is summed up in this verse. I know God through Jesus, and so can you. Paul identifies with Christ to such an extent, that in Christ’s death, Paul died. In Christ’s resurrection, Paul lives. There is a sense in which Paul ceased to be Paul, and became Paul. The old Paul is gone. The new Paul is here. Some of you know he used to go by Saul. Now he goes by Paul. One artist said, they called me Saul, but my Saul, done got sawed off. That’s what happens at the cross when we trust in what Christ has done. He died. Not me. But by being united to Him, I die. My sin is gone. He died not for His sin. But mine. And he was resurrected. I get His new life. His righteousness is gifted to me. All of this happens by faith. We will talk more about that. But notice what it does to Paul’s focus and identity. He isn’t living for God, He is living freely with God. Him and God live life together. By faith Jesus lives through Paul. Do you see that? That’s true freedom. Hear this. As we will hear thorughout this sermon, freedom is not the right to do what you want to do. You’re free to eat skittles all day evefry day, and you will die by 40. To have the power to choose is not biblical freedom. Freedom is becoming who God made you to be. To live with Him. That’s freedom. And to be free in life with God requires that God and you be united. Bound to Him. It’s not a given that God would want to live with you and through you the way Paul boldly claims. But in the person of Jesus, that freedom to be bound to God is possible. So Paul is free as a bird. Living with God.

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Paul says God is my Father through the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. And the Spirit now indwells me and now I scream from the inside out, Father. Abba. I’m an heir. This goodness, this freedom with God being bound to Him is just getting started. And notice how this vertical freedom plays out in what Paul’s inner conscience is like as it relates to his own behavior and how it makes him think about God.

19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

We will talk more about the Galatians misunderstanding of the law in a moment, but for now I want you to notice Paul’s freedom before God. He isn’t approaching God with boldness because of the good things he does or the bad things he doesn’t do. He isn’t saying now I live with Jesus because I can keep up. He’s saying I live with Jesus because I’ve been crucified with Him. And newsflash, Paul wasn’t crucified. He had so embraced the gift of Jesus’ decision to be crucified on his behalf and to receive it by faith that his conscience was forever free before God with confidence because he knew God did it, not Paul. So it created a freedom with God. If you’re really freed by God, you want to live with God. Paul had no category for being set free by God and then doing what he, Paul, wanted.

24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

So you see, in Paul’s conscience he is free towards God, and it reveals itself not in Paul doing whatever pleasures his fancy, but in living out that freedom with God. To be free is to live with God. And in your life with God, your ongoing anchor isn’t your good deeds and keeping up, but the grace that brought you in freely as a choice of God, is what keeps you confident and free as you live with Him. Amen?

Horizontal freedom

There is a famous quote by a guy from the 16th century who God used mightily in church history in a little booklet titled “On Christian Liberty” or you might say “On Christian Freedom” and it starts off like this; “I first lay down these two propositions, concerning liberty and servitude. A Christian is the free lord of all and subject to none; a Christian is the most dutiful servant of all and subject to everyone.” What an incredible quote. It highlights how a Christian is 100% free of people and bound to no one and yet in their 100% freedom is bound to everyone. How can both be true? Paul shows us.

Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—

Paul starts his letter by saying, I didn’t get this gospel from no man. God the Father gave me this through His Son by the Spirit. So, what that does is it sets the course for his story to be the example for the Galatians of how free he is in the gospel with God as his confidence. He doesn’t need people to validate his message. He doesn’t do actions to get them to think he’s right with God. He is right with God. 100% free. Gift. Confident. I am bound to no one, says Paul.

6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me.

Paul says, look, Jesus revealed himself to me about 14 years ago. I got this good news. I didn’t check it with nobody. Went away and got trained and started preaching that word to gentiles like y’all. Then when the time was right, me, Barnabas, and Titus went up to meet the OG’s that rolled with Jesus himself; Peter, James, and John. He went to meet them to make sure the gospel he was preaching, this freedom with God to get to live with Him because of what Jesus did as a free gift was the right gospel. And check this out Galatians, they certified us. He slips in 2:6 that he don’t care who they are status, but he submitted to them because the gospel was at stake. So the man who is bound to no one bound himself to Peter. So when you’re freed by God and to God, you submit to people at times. You’re not free if you say things like I don’t care what people think and never love them. Your freedom moves you towards others, and even under others. You don’t leverage your freedom to run from people in selfishness, but towards them in love.

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

So in Paul’s mind his freedom with God and being bound to God sends Him on a lifelong mission to live with God by loving others. I am bound to none, and bound to everyone at the same time. Free from waht they think, but free to love them and submit to them, when needed.

11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

The same freedom that led Paul to submit to Peter led him to stand up to him. Peter was acting hypocritically. Peter was acting one way around Gentiles, free, no additional things you guys need to do. But when those who were saying all Gentile believers also need to accept circumcision to be right with God rolled up, Peter didn’t want to be seen with them. Paul’s like yo! That ain’t cool. You tripping. You ain’t free. So Paul stood up to him not to defend Paul’s reputation, but the gospel’s reputation. True freedom is shown in a vertical life with God with zero insecurity of conscience even if one is sinning, not because they’re doing good deeds, but because God saved them, and it shows itself in moving towards your neighbor in love. And it is shown in a willingness to both submit to a neighbor and stand up to them. If your freedom in the gospel hasn’t led you to submit to others, you aren’t free in the gospel, and if it hasn’t led you to stand up to others, you aren’t free in the gospel. Because you haven’t just been gifted freedom from guilt and punishment, but you’ve been gifted a new heart. Your bound to God. And God is giver. God is love. Gives. Now you will be focused others in love.

2. The Obstacles to Freedom (Galatians 5:4-10, 2:19, 5:13)

There are two main obstacles. First, adding to the gospel with our rule keeping. Second, using the gospel as a license for sin. First, adding to the gospel.

4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. 7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

I highly encourage you to go back and read the letter all in one sitting to really understand the depths of what Paul is frustrated about. But as you can tell in verses 4-6, Paul is saying y’all submitting to circumcision is a falling away from grace. You’re not free. You’re in danger of losing the whole thing. You were doing so well. What happened Galatians? He’s saying guys, your choice to accept circumcision does nothing. Nothing. It’s an old law. And Paul goes to an elaborate degree in this letter to show them that the law is good. But the law came after the promise. God chose Abraham, and Abraham believed God. And then based upon his belief, he gave him things to do. Specifically 430 years after God called Abraham in his covenant, through Moses came the law or the 10 commandments. So, Paul shows us in Galatians and Romans that the law or the Mosaic covenant came after the Abrahamic covenant. That second covenant doesn’t nullify the first one. No. It is working as a complement to it until the time where the first one is fulfilled which has happened in Jesus. So, you gentiles, hear this, the law is good, it shows us who God is and how we can flourish, but that Mosaic covenant didn’t have the power to give life. No, life comes through the first covenant. Grace. So the law, or the 10 commandments, or rule keeping was never a path to life. It was a description of a flourishing life, but it had no power to provide that life. As a matter of fact, part of the law’s intent, baked into what it was, was to bring people to a place where they would say I can’t be what this law is calling me to be. And from that self-evident nature of I can’t do this, those people should look up to God to save them because their keeping of the law couldn’t.

19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.

So Paul is grateful for the law because it became like a cage taht made him aware he was trapped and needed to be set free. Love God and love people. I can’t. I’m trapped in my inability to be who God made me to be and want me to be so let me look up to God and what I find is that God used that process to lift my eyes to the cross where God saves me through His actions, I don’t save myself through my law keeping. So is the law bad? No. Sin is the problem. The law was added to show how sinful sin is. God initiated the Abrahamic covenant of grace, and then sent the law to show people that sin had them trapped, and then in steps the Son of God born under the law, born to a woman, to set us free from the law of sin and death.

So, to say you believe in Jesus and that you believe in Jesus and must accept circumcison is absolute lunacy crazy house madness heretical pull my teeth out lose my mind crazy. No! Paul is ready to flip every table ever made. If you accept circumcision you are lost. You don’t get it. Christ died to set you free. If you submit to an action that you do for the purposes of giving you cofnidence before God, you’ll never find the confidence you think it’ll give you. These fake teachers telling you that are in back rooms boasting that they’re able to get y’all to submit to cirumcision. I’m getting beat down daily. Not because I’m telling people to get circumcised and God will love them but look to Christ who was crucified. You’re dead in your sin and only He can save you. People kill me for my message. They praise them for their message.

So even though it’s 2025 and we don’t miss the gospel by thinking we need to be circumcised to be loved by God, we miss it all the time when we look to our actions as a sense of relief and freedom from guilt. I don’t feel close to God, and my next action is the effective cause of what makes God love me. My rule keeping is my confidence. AHHHH. No! It’s Galatia all over again. If you add to the gospel, you lose it.

Second, we add to the gospel by using it.

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Sadly, many hear the message about what Jesus has done for them as a gift, and they think, well if God loves me no matter what I do, then it doesn’t matter what I do. Then I’m going to live for pleasure. I’ll get my way no matter what. I’ll squeeze people, use people, seek pleasure with people, you name it. Jesus loves me. It’s a gift. This mindset reveals that what we want is to do what we want to do, but have a free conscience from guilt. We want to use God. Father help us.

And I’ll say this to the people here who don’t know Jesus. What I want you to hear is that you’re not free just because you have the power and the right to do what you want to do. Financially independent and retire early. You can be a 42 year old with $10,000 a month in passive income, own a few properties, treat people nice, and have the financial and time based flexibility to serve at a soup kitchen once a week, and not be free. Our culture wants us to aim for a life free of time and financial constraints. Freedom isn’t having no boss. It’s not having any financial constraints. Freedom is knowing God. Freedom is being His beloved child through Jesus Christ. Freedom isn’t a green light to live how you want, and not have guilt. Freedom is to become who God made you to be. A fish is free to hop out the water onto the sand of the beach. Sure. Go for it. Not going to go well. You’re free in terms of you have the right and ability to ignore God. Go for it. Doesn’t lead to your joy or flourishing or the flourishing of anyone else. Last thing I’ll say about freedom in contrast to what our culture says. We tend to seek out what we think will bring us joy, and then we preach it to others. So if you go mentor at a local school and you see kids struggling with grades, you start to incentivize them. If you’re into our culture’s view of freedom, you know what you’ll find yourself preaching? Some form of the American gospel of freedom; master yourself, get good habits, retire early, be independent. You think they need to become like you. Friends, that ain’t it. They need God. Whether they work at a Tyson chicken nuggets factory all their days or own a small business, their joy won’t come and go based on their circumstances, it’ll come if they know God through Jesus freely as a gift.

And to the Jesus followers in the room, let us beware using Jesus to do the very same thing our flesh wanted to do before we knew Jesus. Leveraging his crucifixion to give us the green light to do our thing and then wave that Jesus died for me. You’re not free either friend. The one who is free is bound to no one and bound to everyone.

3. The Path to Freedom (Galatians 3:1-3, 6:12-16, 2:20)

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Jesus Christ was crucified. Did you receive this by works of the law or by hearing with faith? You received it with faith. God did something. God acted. God intervened for us family and friends. He sent His Son to be publicly crucified. This is important. Why did Jesus have to die? Because the very life the law points to, the good life of flourishing and neighbor love, we were and are incapable of living out. Apart from God we are dead in our sin. Someone say dead. Friends, I don’t know if you know Jesus. But if he is drawing you, your next step is not to hear from me something to do. You need to go meditate on the cross until you realize that your sin put Him there. Every sinner needs to be faced with the fact that their sin killed Jesus. Mine did. He had to be publically crucified. God’s love isn’t some idea in the sky that God says I love you, no worries, see you when you get to heaven. No. God is holy and righteous and good. The law is good. We are guilty. We should be undone by our sin. Even for those of us who follow Jesus, when is the last time we meditated on the fact that the cross was necessary? When was the last time we considered our inability to be righteous? Our helplessness before God? Our guilt is deserved. We earned death. We don’t deserve God’s love. You don’t. We can default into a posture almost like of course God loves me. How do you know friend? That’s a bad recipe to start your relationship with God considering His Son was publically crucified because your sin required that He die in your place. Once we allow God’s law to break us and show us that we are in fact in prison, we long to get out. And once we are trapped and realize we can’t get out by any action of our own, we see this blessed Savior on the cross. He offers to set us free. Faith is grabbing the gift. We don’t earn God’s love. We receive it. It’s a gift. We hear with faith. He gives us ears to hear. We grab Him.

And the last thing I want us to think about is how was Paul able to avoid the thing the Galatians had fallen into with wanting to feel good about themselves by submitting to circumcision?

12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

Verse 14. Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I won’t boast in what I do. I boast in what He did. Listen carefully friends. The road is wide that leads to destruction because we want our sin, and because we want to trust in what we do. We want to put confidence in the flesh. Your tendency will be to drift towards circumcision. Towards a mindset of freedom coming through your initiating activity. How do we avoid the slip into boasting in lawkeeping? Boasting in circumcision? The path to avoid boasting in cirumcision is to boast in the cross. I want to call you to boast in the cross. Jesus’ cross. His public crucifixion. His gift to you of taking your death and gifting you His righteousness. I fear that even in the church, this is not enough for us. We want to boast in what we do. The things we do for God. The streak we are on of avoiding sin. Or maybe your boast today has nothing to do with God. Maybe you boast in your career. For me my temptation is to boast in what people think of me. I’m tempted to equate my value with what others think of me as a leader or pastor or preacher. Maybe for you it’s your money. Your comfort. Your kids success. What has your boast? To be human is to boast. To brag. I had a friend recently boast to me that Zaxby’s chicken sandwich is trash, and I almost gasped. He was boasting in Popeye’s. We don’t have to boast in that which we love. It’s a joy to boast. The joy of knowing Jesus. The joy of a freedom taht comes not through what I earned, but getting to live with God because He drew me to Himself through His Son results in a boasting in the cross. Boasting gets redefined. Reaimed. Towards what Christ has done. Not what I do or have done.

I thought I was so cool, I thought I was so free.

Little did I notice the chains that were clinging to me.

But then came God to show me the law, to show me I was not who I ought.

Good deeds must be what God wants, is what I thought.

But then it came in, this good news of what Jesus had done.

This news that takes slaves to sin and makes them daughters, makes them sons.

So now that you’re in, crucifixion or circumcision, which will it be for you?

Crucifixion is a gift, circumcision leads to a reward we think we are due.

Crucifixion is His victory, given as a gift.

Crucifixion kills the old me, old me and new me had to split.

Now in Christ we are new.

Only by faith do we live, our lawkeeping will not do.

So look to the law, until you feel broken.

Then look to the cross, the Savior’s arms are wide open.

Now that we’ve been set free, let us learn to live free serving our neighbor.

We get to live with God now, trusting in His unmerited favor.

So I boast in the cross, not myself, and I am bound to none.

I live with God now, and in Him, I am bound to everyone.

So here’s to the free life with God loving our neighbor.

Oh what a salvation we have, oh what a Savior.