Giving Away Your Freedom

Scripture: Galatians 5:1-12
Sermon Series: Galatians – Set Free, Live Free – Sermon 13

Can you imagine a prisoner being acquitted but then pleading to stay in prison? In 2013, a Nigerian High Court judge acquitted Sylvester Obata of all charges after he spent seven years in prison. But instead of celebrating his freedom, Obata rejected the verdict. He listed all the reasons that he was guilty and then pleaded with the judge to send him back to prison. Finally, six policemen had to physically drag him out of court. Though he was acquitted and released he found it impossible to enjoy the freedom he’d been given.

Apparently, Obata had never seen Braveheart. Remember William Wallace’s cry: “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!

Freedom is the cry of our day. Everyone longs for it. If you live in Ukraine, you want freedom from the war. Someone in the hospital may be crying for freedom from sickness and suffering. Those who struggle with mental struggles want to be free. Some want to be free of debt. Others from a bad marriage. Are you counting the days until you’re free from the work grind?

This morning we’re talking about freedom. What is freedom? The dictionary defines it as: Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. We’ve been studying Galatians for the past few months. The book of Galatians is all about true freedom, God’s freedom. No other passage unpacks this better than the passage we read this morning.

Galatians 5:1 starts off with, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” Sylvester Obata’s wish describes the sentiment of some believers. They prefer security over freedom. They want rules. The idea of freedom scares them. When they realize that Christ has set them free, they want to go back to prison again.

That was the Galatians. Maybe it’s you. To have security, you’re Giving Away Your Freedom. Please resist the urge! If you’ve committed your life to Christ, you’ve been set free, so stay free! Paul wants us to realize what we lose when we take a “Jesus + something = acceptance with God” understanding of the gospel. We re-imprison ourselves. Paul urges us to Stay Free.

Most Christ-followers don’t struggle with adding to the gospel. We struggle not to be Pharisees, somehow thinking we please God more because we do or don’t do some things. There’s a little legalist in each of us. We too easily give away the freedom Jesus gave us. This morning let’s look at the choices we must make so we’re not Giving Away Our Freedom. If you’re taking notes…

1. Stay free, vs. 1. 

Have you ever seen videos of palace guards in England? You can try your best to get them to blink or move. You can scream at them…they still won’t move. They won’t even blink.

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). “Stand firm.” Literally, the word in the original means take a stand and keep on standing. They weren’t to give any ground when it came to salvation by grace alone.

Some had wilted under the barrage of the Judaizers. Others surrendered. In this holy war we must persevere against satanic deception and stand fast in the faith. No matter what happens, the gospel is the foundation of true freedom.

What’s the freedom purchased for us by Christ’s cross? It’s freedom from God’s wrath, the power of sin, tyranny of Satan and his demons, or an accusing conscience. It’s the freedom to live in a new kind of power, the freedom to love and give yourself to others. It’s the freedom of immediate access to God the Father, resting in His presence and the freedom to have an abundant life.

These are great freedoms. So, why does Paul go to such lengths to stress the importance of maintaining them? Because they’re too easily surrendered. 

Religious leaders or even a church culture may accuse us of not living up to “real” Christian standards and give us a list of rules to follow. But we can do nothing to earn our salvation and can do nothing to impress God with our spirituality! God does not love us because of anything that we do. God loves us because He loves us, because He chose to love us.

Is it important to read your Bible, pray, serve and give? Yes. But never to impress God. How are we going to impress a holy awesome God?

Are you on the performance merry go round? Jesus died to set you free! Ephesians 1:6 says we’re “accepted in the Beloved” (KJV). God will not love you any more today than He will tomorrow or a hundred years from now. He loves us because we’re in Jesus, not because of anything we do or will do.

My best example is my relationship with Jane. She’s my best friend. I’ll do anything to make her happy but not to get her to love me more. It’s not performance based. For example, I’m not a big concert person. If Jane wants to go to a concert and wants me to go – I’m there! It goes both ways. I love books and love to read. In our 42 years of marriage Jane has never complained about my love for books. In fact, last week though she had a thousand other things to do, she was my partner at the Burlington Library Friends Book Sale.

When you trusted Christ, He took the yoke of sin and guilt off you. A “yoke” is restraining equipment you put on animals. “Do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” It’s slave talk. Don’t allow yourself to be locked in. Young’s translation says, “Don’t allow yourself to be held fast again.” They’ve already done it once, so Paul says don’t do this again.

A yoke is placed on animals so that they pull the plow to till your ground. It’s heavy. It controls them. Paul says, “Legalism, the law is like this, it’s a yoke.”

For the Galatians, the yoke was trying to attain a righteous standing by being circumcised, keeping the Law’s festivals, etc. It’s a heavy burden no one can live up to. For Christians today it can be a list of rules that aren’t in the Bible.

The problem for the Galatians is not how they started. They began right but now are tempted to turn away from Jesus and His freedom to be yoked to the law to find a righteous standing. Don’t let the temptation of, “I’ve got to do something for God” rob you of the freedom you already have in Him. Don’t go back to living as a slave. Be free! Surrender the control of your life to Jesus.

Jesus met all the demands of God’s Law. He died for our sin and took our condemnation. He’s removed the yoke off us and set us free. How can we think of putting ourselves under the law again and submitting to its cruel yoke?

2. Stay free from attempting to gain God’s acceptance, vss. 2-6. 

Have you ever been scammed? If Paul was using our language, he’d warn the Galatians that they were being spiritually scammed.

When a polytechnic student swiped right on a Tinder profile in March 2021, he was expecting to fall in love and start a romantic relationship. He ended up just losing a lot of money to a scam. The 20-year-old graphic design student, who wants to be known only as JC, said that according to an app, he’d been matched with a woman named, Lin Fei, a 26-year-old who works in an engineering company in Singapore. On their second day of interaction, JC said they decided to continue their conversations on messaging and the social media application WeChat. JC said, “She was playful and friendly. I was just going with it and didn’t think much of it.” Lin Fei showered him with compliments and even professed to love him. On the same day, he received a weblink from her to download a Chinese mobile app that’s a romantic fantasy game, so they could have more bonding time together. To get him to continue playing the game, she’d “guilt trip” him. She’d say things like, “I love you. I want you to play with me.” When he refused, she’d be like “all guys are like this.” Two days later, Lin Fei said she wanted to meet JC at the Farrer Park Mass Transit Station the next evening. They agreed to meet at 7 PM. The next day, Lin Fei asked if JC would become her in-game husband. He paid $300 to purchase gaming credits to pay for their virtual marriage, but at 7pm, she didn’t turn up. Instead, she wanted JC to purchase 999 stalks of roses in the game for her before she’d meet him. “She said that I should buy the roses so that she can see my sincerity.” After he transferred them to her, Lin Fei claimed she didn’t receive the total number of roses and wanted him to do it again. He borrowed $300 from a friend to purchase more gaming credits. Between 7pm and 10pm, JC spent $1,800 to purchase the gaming credits and sent the roses to her five times. Finally, after the fifth time he realized he’d been scammed. He lost $2,100. He said, “I was angry at myself, because I felt that it was my fault for giving in and not being able to stand my ground. It taught me to stand firm and not let people influence me easily. I think I knew from the start it could be a scam, but I didn’t want to believe it, I wanted to hope for the best.”

False teachers were scamming the Galatians with religious lies. Maybe the Galatians knew it was a scam, but they allowed themselves to be scammed.

There are many today being spiritually scammed: “If you do this, if you buy into this, you’ll be good with God, you’ll go to heaven.”

Usually, this scam comes in the form of what are known as the five C’s: You need to be christened, confirmed, go to confession, attend church or give to charity. They’re a scam. None of those will ever gain God’s forgiveness. They’re good works. Salvation is a free gift. You don’t have to, and you can’t do anything. Jesus has done it all. He paid all our sin debt for us when He died on the cross. Paul points out some spiritual scams that they were falling for.  

If you depend on good works, Jesus will have no value. “Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you” (Galatians 5:2). If we trust in Christ plus anything like morality or good works, we lose all the benefits of trusting in Christ.

A story that helps me understand this is about a man who had a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth. He realized the signed baseball was valuable, so he decided to sell it. But he was worried because the signature was faded, so he decided to try to make the autograph clearer. He took the baseball and carefully traced over the letters with a pen: “BABE RUTH.” By trying to add to what Babe Ruth had done, he destroyed what Babe Ruth had done. By the time he’d finished, he’d taken something priceless and made it worthless. It’s what we do to Jesus’ work when we try to add to it. Tim Keller, “You can’t add to Christ without subtracting Christ.”

Some base their standing with God on how much they help at church or give to charity, how much they pray or read their Bible. If we trust in our own works, we deface the work of Christ. The gospel will be of no value for us.

If you depend on good works, you must keep the whole Law. “I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law” (Galatians 5:3). The Law isn’t a buffet, where you pick and choose what you like and leave the rest. If you insist on circumcision, you must keep the other 612 commands, too. If you insist on keeping the Sabbath, you must keep the sacrifices. Putting yourself under one obligates you for the whole thing.

Try this next time you’re stopped for speeding. Tell the cop, “Officer, I’m sorry for speeding, but I’ve never robbed anybody. I’ve never cheated on my taxes.” Do you think that would get you out of a ticket? The cop would just smile as he writes it up. No amount of obedience can make up for one act of disobedience. If you insist on putting yourself under any part of the law, you must keep the whole law. Otherwise, you’re under its curse.

Many churches pick and choose what will make one right with God. A big one is baptism. Many teach what’s known as baptismal regeneration, that a person is saved by being baptized and can’t be saved without baptism.  While baptism is a command of Christ, and frankly, there’s no excuse I know of for a Christ-follower not to obey this command. But if one’s salvation depends upon obedience to the command to be baptized, why stop there? Jesus gave a lot of other commands. Don’t you have to obey all of those too to go to heaven? If you teach salvation by being baptized, if you’re consistent, you must answer, “yes,” because baptism wasn’t Jesus only command.

If you depend on good works, you’re no longer trusting God’s grace. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace (Galatians 5:4). It’s not that Christ leaves us when we try to earn God’s favor. We leave Him and drift out of His grace.

Fallen away was a nautical term, describing ships drifting off course. Here, it speaks of believers drifting off course. When believers try to work to earn God’s favor, they drift off course from grace to legalism. They don’t lose their salvation but lose its enjoyment as they work so hard for something they already have. A.W. Tozer (picture) said, If the devil cannot succeed in destroying the conscience he will settle for making it sick. I know Christians who live in a state of constant distress, fearing that they may displease God.

No one will ever get beyond their need for grace. Every Christ-follower is a sinner in constant need of grace. It’s not some relic from our past. Wonderfully, His grace is enough to cover any sin. We can’t gain God’s favor by our behavior, and we can’t lose God’s favor by our behavior.

You’ve heard the expression, There but for the grace of God, go I. Do you know where it came from? John Bradford (picture), an English Reformer, saw prisoners being taken to the gallows to be hung, said, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Later Bradford was arrested and condemned to death. He was burned at the stake for his faith. As the flames rose, he turned to another condemned pastor, John Leaf, saying, Be of good comfort, brother. We shall enjoy a fine supper with the Lord this night. That’s security in God’s grace!

If you depend on good works, you’re abandoning faith for your own efforts. “For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Galatians 5:5-6).

This righteousness is what enables us to have a right standing with God and be judged “not guilty” by a holy God. In one sense we have that right standing at conversion, but in another we eagerly await it. Justification, while it’s the present possession of the Christ-follower, won’t be fully realized until we get Home. It must be given to us by God. None of us can ever earn it. God gives it in response to faith. Twice Paul tells us this right standing comes by faith.

Do you want to know how you have this faith? It’s a faith that expresses itself through love. If you’re not loving, you need to check your spiritual pulse.

Genuine faith always works itself out in love. In our fight against a works salvation, we must never convey that the Christian life involves no effort or that a Christian can do as they please if they believe the right things. There’s a scourge of dead orthodoxy in the Church today. Our churches are filled with those who believe the right things intellectually, say the right words, and even avoid heinous sins. That doesn’t cut it with God. The faith that counts is faith that expresses itself through love. Faith literally energizes love. Do you have that kind of faith? Are you known for being loving? Love doesn’t just talk, it acts. Love has a gracious, humble attitude? So let me ask…

Does our faith make a difference in how we respond to our enemies? Does it make a difference in how we treat our spouse or children? Does it make a difference in our attitude toward other Christians?

3. Stay free from the enemies of spiritual freedom by being faithful to Jesus, vss. 7-10.

Paul’s intense love for the Galatians and Christians trapped by trusting good works shines through in these verses. He expresses belief in them and comes down hard on those who’ve misled them with lies. He points out the dangers of living by the law instead of living by grace.

They hinder our spiritual progress, vs. 7.You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? (Galatians 5:7). Paul loved athletic illustrations. He’d have been a subscriber to ESPN. It’s important to notice that he never uses the image of a race to tell people how to be saved.

The Bible compares the Christian life to a race. Conversion gets you in the race. But it’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon. New believers get all excited about Jesus and began sprinting toward the finish line, not realizing it’s a long race.

Paul uses a picture of a runner who’s doing well until someone cuts in and knocks him off stride. Sin isn’t the only thing that trips us up. Too often it’s other believers. It’s sobering to realize we either help or hinder our brothers and sisters in their spiritual race. Please ask yourself: Am I bringing my friends closer to Jesus, or am I pushing them away from Him?

They spiritually contaminate us, vs. 9. A little leaven leavens the whole lump (Galatians 5:9). Yeast is almost always a symbol of evil in the Bible. It spreads and permeates every part of the dough. That’s what false teaching, especially legalism, does in the church.  

A modern parallel is a computer virus. It spreads and can cause the system to crash. Most church crises and even church splits begin with something insignificant, often a seemingly small issue or sin.

Currently, I’m reading the book of Numbers in my Quiet Time. The same sin that hounded the Children of Israel haunts us in the Church – complaining, pettiness. Have you ever noticed that gripers never gripe alone? They have to share it, and soon it’s like a cancer. We desperately need encouragers in the Church. We have enough discouragers. They’re “missionaries of misery.”

They confuse us, vs. 10-11. “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. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed” (Galatians 5:10-11). Apparently, these false teachers are misrepresenting Paul, saying he teaches circumcision. Paul says that nothing is further from the truth. If he was preaching circumcision, why are they persecuting him?

There’s real danger in believing falsehoods about God and the gospel. It’s where difficulties in the Christian life are often born. One way we can stand firm in the faith is to reject anyone who tries to pull us away from the gospel.

The most offensive belief Christ-followers hold isn’t moral or political. It’s spiritual. The gospel is offensive. To tell someone they’re a hopeless sinner and can’t please God on their own, that they can never make it without Jesus and accepting His gift of forgiveness from the cross is offensive. Human pride deceives us, leading us to believe our own righteousness is pleasing to God.

Paul is persecuted because he’s not preaching self-righteousness but the cross. If he were preaching good works salvation, they’d love it. As he says, In that case the offense of the cross has been removed (5:11b).

Because their lies are so deadly, Paul concludes with, I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! (Galatians 5:12). If Paul had been on Facebook, he’d have been banned. One theologian said, It was the crudest and rudest statement in all of Paul’s writings.

To understand Paul’s statement, it’s helpful to know Galatia was near Phrygia. Pagan priests there would mutilate and castrate themselves. Paul suggests, in the strongest terms, that the Judaizers do that too.

It’s strong language. Paul’s harshness conveys the gravity of the situation. He loves the Galatians, risking his life to see them come to Christ.

It’s a play on words. Those who insist on circumcision should cut off their genitalia. It pushes the imagery to the extreme. Figuratively, it’d keep them from reproducing their heresy. Paul may be thinking too that under the Law, those with lost or crushed genitalia weren’t allowed in God’s worship place.

In essence he says, “Let those who teach false teachings be cut off from God.” Their circumcision is the same as castration as far as God is concerned. It has no value. Self-righteousness is a big zero with God. To think we can add anything to the perfect righteousness of Christ is spiritually stupid.

Conclusion

Have you ever seen the Statue of Liberty in New York? The lady standing on the pedestal is named, Libertas, which means freedom or liberty. She was a gift to the U.S. from France. In 1885, the completed statue was dismantled in France and put in 214 crates to be shipped to America.

Halfway across the Atlantic, the French ship encountered a terrible storm. It was in danger of sinking. To lighten the ship, the captain ordered all excess weight be thrown overboard. The ship was still in danger of being swamped by the waves. Sailors wanted to throw the crates containing Libertas overboard too, but the captain said, “No! We will sink before we throw Liberty away.” Lady Liberty was saved and now stands a symbol of freedom.

Christ-followers should have the attitude of that brave captain. Don’t throw your liberty in Christ away. Don’t go back into performance Christianity.

Jesus said, You shall know the truth; and the truth shall set you free (John 8:32 NKJV) Don’t throw away the liberty you have in Christ. God’s grace sets you free, free from the law, free from the guilt of sin. It sets you free from the penalty of sin and free from religious rules and rituals that enslave people.  

Whenever we trust our own righteousness we lose our freedom in Christ. The preciousness of the gospel is lost if we fall into performance righteousness. Have you lost the joy of the gospel? The Galatians lost theirs. So, how do you recover your joy?  Three Take-Home Truths…

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 of your sin, your hypocrisy, your shame, your inability to be vulnerable.

You must admit that you’re 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.

You must believe that Christ’s righteousness is all you need. In fact, it’s all you’ll ever need. Come to the cross and thank God for Jesus’ sacrifice for you. Thank him for His perfect righteousness that at salvation is credited to you.

The only place you’ll ever find your joy restored is at the cross. God meets sinners, new sinners (like some of you) and old sinners (like me) at the cross. It’s the only place He meets us. It’s there at the cross that we discover freedom in Christ. Do you need to come to Christ’s cross? Will you come today?