Walk in Freedom

Walk in Freedom
Galatians 5:1-15
September 7, 2025

Tonight, we continue with our theme from last time where we spoke about the fact that we are no longer under the custody of the law, but have been called to freedom in Christ.

As we start this chapter, we see that Paul is encouraging and reminding them that it was for freedom that Christ has set us free, and warning them to keep standing firm in this and not be subject to the yoke of slavery.

You’ll remember that there were those who were trying to teach them that to be a follower of Christ you need it to be circumcised and stand under the law. Paul grows so frustrated with those teaching circumcision that he says he wishes they would go mutilate themselves. This is quite a strong statement.

He goes so far as to say that if they were to receive circumcision after coming to faith in Christ, they would have to stand under all of the law and would be severed from Christ.

This is a very serious warning. It means they would step out from under the grace of the finished work of Jesus Christ and again be judged by the law.  The repercussions of this in eternity are enormous. Can you imagine one day standing before God the Father and He says, ‘Why did you reject the perfect sacrifice of my son? What do you have to call on now?’ And you proudly bring your works of trying to uphold the law before Him and He says: ‘Get those disgusting filthy rags out of my sight!’

Now I do believe that if someone rejected the finished work of Jesus, but then repented and stepped back under grace by faith in Jesus, that they could still be saved.

But it’s interesting to see that it would not be sin that would disqualify them from the grace of God, but what would disqualify them would be a deep conviction of turning their backs on Christ and choosing to follow the law, to such an extent that they would be willing to go through the pain of circumcision as a sign of it.

People today tend to think that if you are a believer and you struggle with sin, that the sin would disqualify you from being in relationship with Jesus. But what actually robs you of relationship and intimacy with God is if you hide your sin and like Adam and Eve try to cover it with your own efforts, like the fig leaves they used.

Paul doesn’t mess around with this as he again hammers in the truth that we are only saved by grace, and that our nature has changed. We cannot by our own power try and uphold the law and be better people. It is a work that is done by the Holy Spirit inside of us as we surrender to Him.

I. You were called to Freedom

• God’s plan for us is to be restored to His original plan and purpose. When God created Adam, He created him free and Adam was walking and living in that freedom, not guided by laws, rules, and regulations. He lived and continual unbroken fellowship with God himself which was his guide in how to live.
• This is key. He was guided and living by and in a love relationship with God. The only directive there was, was that he would continue to choose to live in relationship and in line with God’s loving will.
• The test was that they were not allowed to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They were supposed to eat from the tree of life.
• The tree of life was a symbol of them partaking and receiving their life and sustenance from God and their relationship with God.
• The tree of knowledge of good and evil was temptation to break that love relationship and dependence upon God and choose to do their own will, making their own knowledge and decision of what is good and bad be what would govern their lives.
• In effect, my will be done
• We all know the disastrous consequences of their choice which man today are still reeling under.
• But God wants to do a restorative work in every person who decides to follow Him by faith: Taking us back to His original plan of living in freedom directed, guided, and being sustained by a personal relationship with God, set free from the horror and destruction of sin and death.

A. Death has set you free

• Verse 1- It was for freedom that Christ has set us free.
• Let’s remind ourselves how this happened.

Romans 6: 3-4, Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 

• Just to clarify, when Paul says that we have been baptized into Christ, he is not referencing the baptism in water which we witnessed a few weeks ago.
• The baptism in water is an external sign and confirmation that the person being baptized goes through after they have given their lives to Jesus.
• When we come to faith in Christ, we are spiritually ‘baptized’ into the death of Christ and raised up in new life with Him.
• We associate ourselves with the death of Christ, lay down our lives, our stubbornness, selfishness, and then are raised in a new life with Jesus. The old things have passed away. We are made new creations. We are born again.
• Our relationship with God is restored as the righteousness of Jesus is imputed to us. This is the message of Christ we’ve been talking about the last few weeks.
• By this work of Christ, we are set free.

B. Keep Standing Firm

• Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery.
• This scripture is quoted many times, but it is quoted in the wrong context. Many use this to exhort people by using the yoke of slavery as pointing to sin.
• They use it in the context of you being set free from sin, so don’t sin again and go back under the slavery of sin.
• It is true that we should not stand under the obedience of sin as Paul clearly states.

Romans 6:15-16, What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 

• We will get into this principle more next time, but verse 1 we are looking at now is not talking about sin. In the context of the chapter, it is talking about the yoke of the law, turning your heart back to upholding the law to be made righteous before God.
• Stand firm against going back under yoke of the law. They were under tremendous pressure from the Judaizers teaching in the church.
• Paul says in verse 9: a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.
• Again, many use this scripture to reference the contagious nature and effect of sin, but Paul is using this to warn against trying to upholding the law to be righteous.
• Why is this important? Because we need to remember what gives sin it’s strength: The law.
• What you focus on determines your thoughts and direction. If you focus on sin, you will be drawn to it.

Illus – Pilots are specifically trained to avoid “target fixation,” a dangerous psychological phenomenon where a person becomes so focused on an obstacle that they inadvertently steer toward it. The saying in aviation is to “fly where you want to go,” not where you don’t. This concept applies to many situations beyond just aviation.

• What does this remind you of? The tree of knowledge of good and evil. Focusing on your ability to discern right and wrong and try to live in it, opposed to living in a loving relationship with God that directs your steps.
• Again, one draws to relationship, the other severs relationship. The law leads to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
• A love relationship with God guides us.
• All through scripture God uses the marriage relationship as a picture of our relationship with Him, both as the church and individually.

Illus – Let’s say a bride is standing at the altar on her wedding day…

Illus- Can I give you rules to follow to make your marriage work?

• God calls us to a love relationship.

II. The Law is Fulfilled

• Paul says that the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “ You shall love your neighbor as yourself”
• This refers to this very well-known corner-stone scripture.

Matthew 22:35-39, One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

• What is important to recognize, is that Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets.

Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 

• In other words, He fulfilled this love-command FIRST. He loved the will of God unto death, because He loved us. God and neighbor.

A. Faith works through love

• Verse 6 – Paul says, when you try to follow the law, you are missing the point. If you are in Christ, whether you are circumcised or not means nothing. We fulfill the love command through His Spirit living in us, because we are in Him and He already fulfilled it. It is all about faith operating through love.
• Let’s break this down. Faith in what? My great faith? No, faith in the love of God. Faith in the faithfulness of God. Faith in His heart and His character.
• When you truly realize that NOTHING you could have done could save you from eternal damnation, torment, fear and horror, forever, but it is only the grace and love of God, it changes your whole life.

Illus – Imagine living through the horror of trying to survive concentration camps. The only thing that kept people going was the hope that it would one day end. Eternity though, has no hope. It has no end.

• Our hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. His love for us set us free.
• And if you really understand this, you respond with love and adoration towards God. Then you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

B. Serve one another through love

• Do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
• How does loving and serving others keep me from sinning?
• We should first ask: Why is sin so bad? Because sin destroys on three levels. First, it destroys relationship with God.
• Secondly, it destroys your soul, and Paul specifically references also that sexual sin is a sin against your own body. ( 1 Corinthians 6)
• But then thirdly, sin impacts others. A big part of the law concerns how your actions impact others.

Exodus 20:12-17,“Honor your father and your mother, …You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

• The reason these sins exist is because the heart of man has grown proud and cold.
• But when you love your neighbor as yourself, none of these things are even an issue.
• If you love your parents, you want to honor them.
• If you love people, you don’t want to murder them.
• If you love your wife , you do not commit adultery.
• If you love your neighbor, you want the best for him. You don’t covet his things or if he is blessed.
• If you love, you want the best for the ones you love. You want to serve them and lift them up.

Illus – I love my children and want the best for them. My heart is to support and help them to be the best they can be. My love for them does not change. I loved them even when they were little lumps of crying flesh that could do nothing.

C. Love as you are loved

• Why do people, even Christians, then sometimes still struggle with these things.
• So much so, that Paul says in verse 15:

Verse 15 – But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

• This is the result of trying to uphold the law. Because under the law you are never good enough, and you know it.
• So subconsciously people are saying, “Well at least I am not as bad as that person”, or “Can you believe they did that! I would never do that!”, or “Why is he getting that blessing, opportunity, promotion?? I want that!”
• It is like kids who all feel insecure in the love of their parents and try to outdo one another to earn more acceptance and love than the others. They think the love they experience, the blessings they get, and favor they are under is because of their PERFORMANCE.
• The dilemma is revealed in “Love others as you love yourself.”
• Unfortunately, our self-love is most of the time based on … OURSELVES. This is impacted by our actions and performance, and our feelings of success and failure. So, our self-love is rollercoaster love.
• What should our love be based on?

1 John 4:19, We love, because He first loved us.

• In Christ you are deeply loved, highly favored, and stand under the blessing because of what Jesus has done, not because of your performance!
• When we really understand that we are accepted in the beloved ( Ephesians1:6), then there is no more competition, no more vying for attention, no more feeling unworthy. We are deeply loved, even when we don’t deserve it.
• Therefore, we can deeply love others who do not deserve it.

Verse 16 – But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 

• The answer to sin is not to try and stop sinning. It is to walk by the dictates and conviction and power of the Holy Spirit, the one that testifies with us that we are sons and daughters of God and through whom we cry ABBA, Daddy, Father!
• This is how we walk in freedom.