Passage: Galatians 5:1
The Big Idea
For four chapters Paul has taught one simple, glorious, offensive truth: legalism is bad and grace is good. Our efforts fail; His succeed. Now he urges each person to engage with that truth personally. Stand fast in the freedom Christ won for you, and don’t get entangled again in the yoke of slavery. Instead, get entangled with Jesus, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.
Engage the Truth
An old saying goes: it isn’t what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we preach but what we practice that makes us Christians.
Stand firm, then, in the freedom Christ has given us, and don’t be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).
We’ve spent four chapters learning a truth. A simple truth. A glorious truth. An offensive truth:
- Legalism is bad, and grace is good.
- Our efforts are bad; His are good.
- We are bad; God is good.
I believe there’s nothing left Paul could teach about this. So now he asks them to engage with it. He begs them. Each individual needed to take this truth and apply it to their own life.
Not like the elderly woman who shook the pastor’s hand after a service and said, “That was a wonderful sermon, just wonderful. Everything you said applies to someone I know!”
Stand Fast!
This is going to be a war in your life and mine, this battle between grace and legalism. It will take passion and courage to stand. Picture an epic battle scene where the hero fights off hordes of enemies and is the one left standing at the end.
Our enemy will constantly attack your trust in grace. He’ll attack your trust in Jesus’ work, trying to get you to fall to the side of legalism: working for, earning or deserving God’s blessing.
D. L. Moody told of a woman in the South who had been enslaved, and after the Civil War was confused about her status. Her old master told her she wasn’t free. Her own people told her she was. She’d heard that Abraham Lincoln had signed a proclamation setting her free, but her old master said he hadn’t, or had no right to. She honestly didn’t know whether she was free or not.
Many Christians are confused about the same thing. Jesus Christ has signed their Emancipation Proclamation, but their “old master” keeps telling them they’re still slaves to a legal relationship with God. They live in bondage because the old master has deceived them.
This mental and spiritual battle is raging even now. The world, the flesh and the devil are all fighting to make us fall back under that yoke of slavery.
The Liberty
Today people chase “freedom,” thinking it means doing whatever they want and never denying any desire. That’s a kind of liberty, a false one. But it isn’t the liberty.
The liberty is:
- Freedom from the tyranny of having to earn our own way to God. (Our position.)
- Freedom from sin, guilt and condemnation. (Our possession.)
- Freedom from the penalty of sin, from its power, and one day from its very presence.
- Freedom for a perfect relationship with God through Jesus.
Jesus is the one who set this plan in motion. He declared war on our behalf. He’s the captain of our army, the hero of our battle scene.
He fired the first shot by making us free. For thousands of years people tried to prove their goodness to God by their actions. And in one moment on the cross, all the goodness people had been searching for was freely given to everyone who believes and trusts in Jesus.
Don’t Get Entangled
At the Jerusalem Council, Peter asked why they would test God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither they nor their ancestors had been able to bear (Acts 15:10).
- The yoke of the Law is a yoke of slavery, not freedom. It’s a heavy load that never gets lighter.
- No one can bear it. Even people who think it’s the right way eventually collapse under the weight of its demands.
- Paul warns us not to get entangled.
Get entangled with Jesus!
Jesus invites everyone who is weary and burdened to come to Him, and He will give them rest. Take His yoke and learn from Him, because He is gentle and humble in heart, and you’ll find rest for your souls. His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).
- Contrast His yoke with the yoke of the Law! One entangles you; the other brings rest. One is endless work; the other is easy and light.
- One master is gentle and humble; the other is harsh and proud.
- Oh Jesus, why do we ever turn away from Your beautiful face?
Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah: the Spirit of the Lord God is on Him, because the Lord has anointed Him to bring good news to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, and open the prison to those who are bound (Isaiah 61:1). Jesus read that passage and announced it was fulfilled in Him (Luke 4:18-21).
In every conflict you face, in every fight against sin, are you going back to what Jesus did on the cross, or drifting back to the bondage of your own effort?
Freedom Not to Sin
- Sin will not be your master, because you aren’t under law but under grace (Romans 6:14). Trusting Jesus’ work on the cross frees us from sin’s dominating power. Sin may still show up in a snapshot of your life, but it no longer runs the whole movie.
- Live as free people, but don’t use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s servants (1 Peter 2:16). Doing right is the result of this freedom combined with love for Jesus.
- False teachers promise freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption, because people are slaves to whatever has mastered them (2 Peter 2:19). You’ll be either a servant of God or a slave of corruption.
How We Get Tangled
Paul warns the Colossians: don’t let anyone judge you about food or drink, festivals, new moons or Sabbaths. Those were a shadow of things to come; the substance is Christ. Don’t let anyone disqualify you by insisting on false humility, the worship of angels or visions they claim to have seen. They’re puffed up by their fleshly minds and aren’t holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together, grows with growth that comes from God. If you died with Christ to the basic principles of the world, why do you submit to rules like “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”? Those are about things that perish, and are based on human commands and teachings (Colossians 2:16-22).
Regulations, and our attempts to keep them, don’t work, no matter how hard you try!
These rules look wise, with their self-made religion, false humility and severe treatment of the body, but they have no value against the indulgence of the flesh (Colossians 2:23).
- Legalistic rules may look wise, but they have no real power. Legalism doesn’t restrain the flesh; it feeds it in a subtle, powerful way.
- As F. F. Bruce observed, the strictest self-denial can live right alongside unbearable spiritual pride, one of the subtlest and most stubborn works of the flesh.
- Self-made religion is people reaching up to God, trying to justify themselves by keeping a list of rules. Christianity is God reaching down to people in love through Christ.
Will You?
Paul asked the Galatians to engage with this truth of Jesus only and grace only. So I’m going to ask you the same thing.
- Will you stand fast? Will you hold firm to Jesus no matter what the world throws at you, even when your world falls apart?
- Will you believe you’re still God’s son, even when you fall into sin?
- Will you believe there’s nothing you can add to your salvation? There’s only fruit to be grown, by staying connected to the Vine, the Head from whom all blessing flows.
Hebrews explains that while the old tabernacle was standing, the way into the Most Holy Place hadn’t yet been opened. Its gifts and sacrifices couldn’t perfect the worshiper’s conscience. They dealt only with food, drink, washings and outward regulations imposed until the time of reformation. But Christ came as High Priest of the good things that have come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (Hebrews 9:8-11).
Now the way is open. You’ve been brought into the Holy of Holies, into the very presence of God. And that place of nearness to Him is where freedom from sin is found.
Grace Takeaway
Christ has signed your Emancipation Proclamation. Don’t let your old master talk you back into chains. Stand fast in the freedom Jesus won for you. Refuse the yoke of law, and take His easy yoke instead. Hold on to Jesus when life falls apart, believe you’re His child even when you stumble, and rest in His presence, where freedom lives.
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