Live Free
As we look forward to celebrating Independence Day this week, our hearts are heavy at the loss of the 19 service men who were killed in the bomb blast in Saudi Arabia. These people had answered the call of our government to serve there, and tragically, they lost their lives in the line of duty.
It’s a dangerous world out there. Someone has well said “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. That is nowhere more true than in the spiritual realm.
We have been studying the book of Galatians, and we have seen how the Galatian Christians had come under spiritual attack by forces that wanted to steal away their freedom in Christ.
The attack on the Galatians wasn’t a terrorist assault such as the bombing that happened last week. It was a more subtle, insidious approach by people who posed as the Galatians’ friends. They came with teaching and reasoning that certainly sounded biblical. They advocated that the Galatian Christians, in order to be truly mature in their faith and spiritual, should begin to observe the OT Law. After all, God wrote that Law, and he must have written it for it to be obeyed. So the Galatians, who were Gentiles, were ready to begin a program of Law-keeping in order to better themselves in the eyes of God.
When Paul heard about it, he immediately wrote this letter we have been studying. He wrote it to say “No! Don’t do it! You have been deceived. This is not God’s will for you as followers of Jesus Christ. This is not why God gave the Law. This is not how to win God’s favor. This is not how to become more spiritual.” And you can sense the urgency and the conviction with which Paul spoke in every paragraph of this letter.
The letter of Galatians has six chapters, and you can divide it into three sections. Chapters 1–2 are rather personal because Paul takes time to defend his own calling and credentials as an apostle. Part of the strategy of the false teachers was to undermine Paul’s authority and credibility in the eyes of the Galatians. So he spends the first two chapters talking about his conversion, his call, and his credentials.
Chapters 3–4, which we have just come through, are intensely doctrinal. Paul goes into great detail about the Law, and God’s purpose for the Law. He shows from the OT itself that the Law was never meant to justify us before God. We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. God intended the Law to be a mirror, to show us how sinful we are, and a monitor, to lead us to faith in Jesus Christ. Once a person comes to faith in Christ, it would be sheer folly for him to go back into a form of spiritual slavery under the Law. God means for us to live on a different plane.
And that brings us to chapters 5–6, which are extremely practical. How does a person live as a Christian? How does grace operate in practical everyday living? This is what we are about to find out.
Let’s look at Galatians 5:1, which you’ll find on page 1154 of your pew Bible. And you might want to follow along with the study notes that you’ll find in your bulletin this morning. There’s a little picture down at the bottom of the page that I especially want you to remember this morning.
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 first thing that we need to understand about the Christian life is that it is a life of freedom. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Now that’s something we really need to hear, because so often people think that being a Christian is restrictive.
Christians have the reputation, unfortunately, of being people who don’t do this and don’t do that—people who never smile or laugh much. People whose lives are bound by a set of rules and limitations that are really designed to prevent you from having any fun at all.
And that is not true. That is not what it means to be a Christian. If Christians have that reputation of being uptight, stern, and strait-laced, they have it because they have fallen into the same error that the Galatians were about to fall into. They have become legalists. They have adopted a man-made set of rules and they have allowed that to control their lives, rather than the Spirit of God. And that will turn you into an ugly, cantankerous, critical, fault-finding, legalistic, stick-in-the-mud Christian faster than anything.
Paul says in verse 1 “Don’t let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” The word burdened that he uses there is the word “entangled”, and it means to be held, to be ensnared, like a free-swimming dolphin that’s gotten tangled up in a tuna net. Legalism robs you of your freedom. So don’t let it happen to you. Stand firm! Stand up to these people who sound so spiritual but who really want to steal your liberty and your joy in Christ.
If you don’t, you face the danger of falling away from grace. Look at verse 2…
Galatians 5:2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
The Galatians were flirting with disaster. They were about to begin the practice of circumcision as a sign of their willingness to take on the demands of the Jewish Law. Now remember, they were not Jews, they were Gentiles. And yet they were about to add this whole, elaborate system of law-keeping to their Christian lives as though they were OT Jews.
And Paul says “Wait a minute. You better think this over. If you take on the sign of circumcision, it’s going to mean four things will be true of you spiritually.”
1. Christ will be of no value to you and you will be alienated from him.
Anyone who tries to make himself acceptable to God by keeping the Law devalues the person and work of Jesus Christ. God sent Christ to purchase our salvation for us by his death on the cross.
If we say, “Ok, Jesus, I believe you did that for me. But now I’m going to try to earn more of God’s approval by keeping this big list of do’s and don’ts” what we are really doing is slapping Christ in the face.
We are cheapening what he did for us on the cross by suggesting that there is something more that we can do now that will make us even more acceptable to God than what Jesus made us. You see, if you become a legalistic Christian, you end up appreciating Jesus Christ less not more. You are alienated from him.
2. If you let yourself be circumcised (v. 3) you are obligated to obey the whole law.
Paul says if you take the first step down that road, you’ve bought the whole package. You see, the Law isn’t like a cafeteria—you can’t pick and choose what laws you are going to observe and what laws you are going to ignore. You’ve got to obey them all.
There are some Christians who make a great fuss about observing certain OT laws. Some of them won’t eat pork. Some of them insist that we have to worship on Saturday, because that is the Sabbath.
But the same ones who insist that we keep those specific laws totally ignore other aspects of the law, such as observing the Passover, or offering the sacrifices. That’s inconsistent. If you are going to observe one law, you have to observe them all.
3. If you embark on a life of legalism, you fall away from grace (v. 4)
This does not mean that you lose your salvation; it means that you lose your appreciation for what made you a Christian in the first place. You lose sight of the grace of God.
The expression to fall away means literally, “to fall out of”. For the last two years, we’ve had a robin’s nest in our tree beside our front door. And we’ve watched the mother robin lay her eggs and hatch them and feed the baby robins. And as the baby robins grow and become more active, sometimes what happens is that one of them falls out of the nest. And then it is in great danger, because it doesn’t know how to fly. It’s down on the ground, far from the safety of the nest and the care of the mother bird.
But it is still a robin. Just because it fell out of the nest doesn’t mean that it stops being a robin. In the same way, a Christian who becomes a legalist falls away from grace. He’s still a Christian; he still belongs to God’s family. But he’s down spiritually. He’s far from warmth and safety of God’s unconditional love because he has chosen to believe that God expects him to live up to some standard, some law, in order to be acceptable.
Think about the Christians you know who see the Christian life in terms of legalism. Are they joyful? Are they happy? Are they trusting God and at peace when they go through trials? Are they warm and accepting toward others whose doctrines or practices may differ from theirs?
If they’re anything like the Christian legalists I’ve known, they’re not. Because they’ve fallen away from grace. Romans 5:2 says that Christ has given us access into this grace in which we now stand. Let’s keep standing there. Let’s not fall out of grace. Paul didn’t want that to happen to his Galatians friends, and I don’t want that to happen to you.
How do you keep standing there? By faith. Look at verses 5–6…
Galatians 5:5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
One of the big problems with being a legalist as a Christian is that you’re never sure if you’ve done enough. You’re never quite sure of your standing with God, because you’ve placed yourself on a performance scale.
But Paul says here “Look. As Christians, we are eagerly, confidently, excitedly awaiting through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. We’re not working for it—we’re awaiting it by faith. God’s going to do it for us and in us. And he is going to do it by his Spirit.”
The flesh says that I can become the person God wants me to be by my own efforts. But faith says that I can never become the person God wants me to be unless God does it for me. And God has promised to do it. He has given me His Spirit to live within me. And the Spirit of God fortifies my faith in God.
The more I exercise my faith in God, the more I am going to yield my life to His Spirit. And the more I yield my life to His Spirit, and follow his leading, the more positive changes I’m going to see take place in my life—the more evidence I’m going to see of God at work. And the more evidence I see that God is at work in my life, the more faith I’m going to have—the more willing I’m going to be to trust him with even more of my life.
So you see, it’s a positive cycle of growth. And the Spirit and faith are the key.
Paul says in verse 6 “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Faith is the root, and love is the fruit. The more we trust God, the more we’re going to love God. And the more we love God, the more love we’re going to have for others.
That’s the vision that Paul had for the Galatians. That’s what he wanted for them—a joyful Christian life such as they used to have when they first trusted Christ. But the false teachers had come and had robbed them of that joy. And you can hear his frustration in verse 7…
Galatians 5:7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?
Perhaps you remember the final of the women’s 1500 meter race at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Mary Decker was the favorite to win the race. But partway through the race, another runner cut her off and she stumbled and fell to the infield. And one of the enduring images of those Olympic Games is of Mary Decker crying in agony as she watches the runners speed off in the distance, her dreams of a gold medal shattered.
Legalism will do that to you in the Christian life. And it is insidious. Look at verse 9…
Galatians 5:9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”
Yeast is the smallest ingredient you put in a loaf of bread. When you mix up the bread dough, you can’t even see the yeast. But yet the yeast makes the largest impact. In the Bible, yeast is usually a symbol of evil. It’s presence may not be outwardly visible, but it surely will make an impact.
And in the same way, a spirit of legalism may not always be outwardly visible. But it can creep into a church, or into your personal life, and have a devastating impact over time.
The spirit of legalism doesn’t suddenly overpower a church. Like leaven, it works secretly, it grows, and before long it poisons the whole fellowship. In most cases, the motives that encourage legalism are good - “we want to have a more spiritual church”. But the methods are wrong.
It is not wrong to have standards in a church. But we should never think that standards will make anybody spiritual or that the keeping of the standards is an evidence of spirituality. That’s how the yeast grows. Before long, we begin to become proud of our spirituality—we become “puffed up”, just like yeast “puffs up” a batch of bread dough. And then we become critical of everyone else’s lack of spirituality.
You see, there is a tension in our understanding of what it means to be free in Christ, and to be a truly spiritual Christian. Look at that illustration down at the bottom of your study sheet. I’m indebted to author Jerry Bridges for this illustration, which I’ve adapted from his book “Transforming Grace”.
Down in Florida, there is a great swamp called the Everglades. We’ve heard a lot about it recently because of that ValueJet airliner which crashed into the Everglades last month.
This great swamp is a treacherous place. It’s full of alligators and snakes and quicksand and leeches… a delightful place! Now coming out of Miami, there is a road that goes right through the middle of the Everglades. It is a two-lane highway called Route 84, but it is better known as Alligator Alley. The road-bed is built up above the level of the swamp and you want to pay attention when you drive, because if you go off the road, you’re in the swamp with the alligators and water moccasins!
Now the Christian life is the same way. The highway is the way of liberty and freedom—it’s the way of grace. Stay on the highway and you get to your destination. But there is a swamp on either side of you.
On the one hand, there is the swamp of license. You might say, “Well, now that I am a Christian, I am no longer under the Law. So I can do anything I please. I can indulge myself. I can follow my appetites wherever they lead me, knowing that Christ has paid for my sin and God has forgiven me.”
There was a church in the NT that thought that way. It was the church in Corinth. They had abused their Christian liberty to the point of driving off the highway and into the swamp of license. Self-indulgence had become their master. The Corinthians were tolerating all sorts of wicked behavior in the church and the situation was chaotic. This is not Christian liberty.
But then there is an opposite error—an error that perhaps we are more prone to. In an effort to safeguard our fellowship from becoming like the Corinthian church, we set up rules and standards for behavior. Most of them are unwritten rules, but they are very real nonetheless. They pertain to how we talk, and how we dress, and where we go or where we don’t go.
And pretty soon, we begin to rely on those rules for our standing before God. And we begin to judge each other and ourselves on the basis of how well we keep those rules. And we take our eyes off Christ and drive off the highway of grace and into the swamp of legalism. The church in Galatia was in danger of doing just that.
You might say “But we’ve got to have rules, we’ve got to have standards, or else we’ll have anarchy, with everyone doing what is right in his own eyes.” Ah, but the standards can lead you off the road, too.
The point I’m trying to make is that either way—whether through legalism, or through license and self-indulgence—you end up in the swamp. The only safe way, the only right way for a Christian, is the way of grace.
What does the way of grace involve? Look at verses 13–15…
Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
Legalism had not led to harmony in the church at Galatia. They were biting and devouring one another—probably over the issue of how well they were keeping the Law. They were just like a school of sharks in a feeding frenzy. There’s no love in legalism.
The way of grace calls for us to use our Christian liberty to serve one another in love. Love is the fulfilment of the Law—it is the essence of the Law. And to be a Christian under the leading of the Holy Spirit is to act in such a way as to bring blessing and benefit to other people.
As Christians, we are free, but not free to do whatever we please. We are free to love one another. This is the true expression of our freedom.
When my son was little, he had a toy fire engine—you know, one of those things you ride in. He rode it on the sidewalk, and he didn’t have a care in the world, but he was not really free. He was under our supervision and our restriction—he couldn’t go on the road; he couldn’t ride around the corner. He had to stay in front of our house.
But now my son has grown up and he’s a man. He has his driver’s license, and I am perfectly happy to give him my car to use whenever he wants because I trust him and he’s a good driver. Now that’s freedom!
But that freedom brings with it great responsibility. He has to stay on the road and obey the traffic signs. He can’t just drive wherever and however he wants. He has to exercise alertness and self-discipline so as not to be a danger to the other drivers on the road or to put his passengers at risk.
But my son does not regard all that responsibility and restriction to be a burden, because of the great blessing that results when you drive that way. You get to go places you could never go before. You get to see things you could never see before. There’s great enjoyment and pleasure in driving that way.
It’s the same way with the Christian life. If we yield our lives to Christ, and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, we will find great joy and privilege. And the responsibility that comes with it—he responsibility of serving others in love—will not be a burden but a blessing. We’ll be traveling along the way of grace.
The Galatians were like adults who wanted to go back to the days of the kiddie fire engine, with all the suffocating restrictions. But this is not what God wants for us.
We have been called to freedom. And understanding that freedom is what is involved in spiritual maturity. It’s not legalism, and it’s not license. It’s liberty. And we’ll look more at that as we continue our study.