Galatians 5:1

It is good to be back to preaching again this morning.  Preaching kind of gets in your blood. When I go a couple of weeks without it, I feel a little lost.  I do enjoy preaching God’s word.  Especially this morning, I am going to enjoy preaching because… I am going to preach the theme verse of our entire year-long study in Galatians. Whoo-who!

Galatians 5:1 is the theme verse for this year.  It may also be the theme verse for the letter to the Galatians. It is a great verse and that is why I am happy to be able to share our connection to this verse this morning; listen.

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.
 
That is the kind of verse that makes you want to go out and slap fight a tree.  Do you know what I mean?  You can’t win when you slap fight a tree, but you can sure work yourself up into a frenzy.  That is really true for us ‘Mericans.  Is there another word that strikes as much emotion in the hearts of Americans as the word freedom?  You could say freedom is our word. You could say it…
-What is America?  It is the land of the… free and the home of the brave.
-From every mountain side, Let… Freedom ring.
-I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm… free,
-Yankee doodle, keep it up, Yankee doodle dandy; Mind the music and the step, And… with the girls be handy.  Maybe not all of our patriotic songs are about freedom.  But, we love freedom.  It is why America is the greatest country in the world.  Am I right?  Freedom is really what we are all about.

So, we can really get behind a verse in the Bible which says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free!” Amen? But is that what Paul is talking about in Galatians 5:1?  Is that what Paul means when he uses the word freedom?  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free… Is Paul talking about American freedom?  Well, maybe, or maybe not.  What does Paul mean when he talks about freedom in his letter to the Galatians?  Paul uses the words free or freedom 11 times in Galatians. It is an important word and a spectacular concept but, how are we supposed to understand freedom when we hear it in Galatians 5:1?  “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free!”  What is this freedom? 

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Like a lot of complex words, it has a variety of different meanings.  What are some of the possible meanings of the word freedom?  Let’s think about how we might use the word and see if any of those fit what Paul is talking about. 

1) Freedom of Choice.   Often when we use the word freedom we mean choice; we can choose this or that.  I am free to go to McDonalds or to go to Sonic.  Once at Sonic, I can choose to have a Number 1 with cheese and ketchup only or I can have a breakfast burrito with sausage or bacon.  Did you know there are 168,000 different drink combinations at Sonic?  That is a lot of choices.  If I have two bucks, and it is between 2-4 on Mon – Fri; happy hour, I have the freedom to have any one of the 168,000 drinks. 

That is a lot of freedom.  Freedom can mean choice.  As Americans we enjoy this meaning of freedom.  We can choose our elected officials at the ballot box.  We can choose our professions.  We can choose where we want to live.   We can choose to marry or not and who.  I am thankful we can choose our religion.  We can go to church anywhere we want or not go to church.  Often when we use the word freedom we are talking about freedom of choice. 

Is that what Paul is talking about? “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free!” Is Paul praising Christ because we are free to have all the choices we want?  Well, I think he is talking about a choice, which each of us has to make, but I don’t think that is the point of what he is saying.  Paul is not telling the Galatians that they are free to choose to do whatever they want. He is telling them the choice they are contemplating is the wrong one.  Paul is not advocating relativism, in that they are free to make any choice they want.  He is telling them that there is a right and a wrong choice. Their freedom depends on making the right choice.  Freedom of choice doesn’t fit the context of Galatians 5:1.

2) Freedom from Oppression.  One day last week Tanya and I drove across Indiana, Illinois, Oklahoma and part of Texas without being stopped or questioned or even having to show any documentation, including my driver’s license. We were never once pulled over for any reason.  Sometimes when we use the word freedom we are talking about the lack of oppression. Freedom consists in independence and self-determination and at least the opportunity to make significant decisions without coercion.  Tyrants and prejudice and slavery and exploitation of groups because of race, or gender or poverty or marginalization of any group, is the opposite of freedom.  Freedom can mean no oppressive authority by one group over another; freedom from oppression.

Is that what Paul is talking about in Galatians.  Well, yes and no.  He has already advocated that in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.  That at church on Sunday morning there are no oppressive categories, there is freedom. But after church, on Monday morning, those Galatian Christians, when they returned to the other world, they were, in reality still slaves, who had to answer to masters.  Some were still women who were taken advantage of by brutal men. They were still either Gentiles or Jews, who were marginalized by the other group. 

This freedom Paul advocates in Galatians 5:1, I believe, has led, over the course of centuries, to the changing of our societies and has stopped lots of oppression.  But, in Galatia, in 49 AD, Christ’s freedom had little to do with overthrowing oppression in their culture. The freedom which Christ has freed us, is not from human oppression, but spiritual oppression.  Ah ha, we are getting closer. 

3) Freedom from Addiction.  Sometimes when we talk about freedom we talk about being free from some addiction, some emotional disorder, some sin.  We might say that someone was free from alcohol, or drug-free or freed from pornography or any number of other addictions or sins. Freedom from the control of some sin is freedom.  

Is Paul working on this type of freedom?  Well sort of.  We will discover in these last two chapters of Galatians that Paul is very much concerned with our becoming more Christ-like.  We are going to read in the next few weeks such verses as…

Galatians 5:16, 19-21  So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature… 19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;  idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul is concerned with their being free from sin.  But the freedom which Christ has set us free is more than not sinning.  It is positive.  It is alive.  It is the Spirit.  “O, I see!”  Just addiction-freedom is not really the point of Galatians 5:1.

4) Freedom from Worry.  We talk about financial freedom. We talk being dept-free.  We talk about being care-free.  We sing, “Don’t worry; be happy.”  A person who retires is said to be, “Foot loose and fancy… free.” We talk about being cancer free.  Sometimes when we talk about freedom there is a sense of not worrying, everything is taken care of.  There are no more burdens or any more responsibilities.  A person is free who has no cares or commitments. There is a sense of the word which means lack of anxiety or problems or obligations; free to live life to its fullest.

Is Paul telling the Galatians not to worry; be happy?  Has Christ has set them free from worry or obligations?  Yes and no.  Certainly, Paul is advocating a positive mental attitude. 

Galatians 5:22-23  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

There are worry-free results of living in the Spirit.  But the freedom Christ has given us is not simply to be happy. Paul is in fact telling the Galatians that they had better worry about what was going on in their church.  In just three verses after our verse, Paul warns them they are in danger of being alienated from Christ; falling from grace.  Paul’s freedom is not all about smelling the roses and being worry-free. 

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So, if the way we normally think about freedom is not really what Paul is talking about, what does he mean?  All such answers are found in… context.  It is dangerous to pop Galatians 5:1 out of its context and make it mean what you want it do mean.  We must find what Paul meant in context. I want to look at two contexts: first is the context of his letter. 

The last time I preached I asked the question, “Who’s you mama, Hagar or Sarah?”  In the verses leading up to 5:1 Paul uses an allegory.  Hagar is your mother if you use law to help you quit sinning.  We all want to be better; to be more holy.  If we use law, if we have a set of regulations, to achieve that goal then Hagar is our mother.

But if we choose to live by the Spirit and allow the Spirit to do his work in our hearts, then Sarah is our mother. If we trust in the Holy Spirit in our heats to do his work to make us more like Christ then we are children of the free-woman.  The verse right before Galatians 5:1 is Galatians 4:31.

Galatians 4:31  Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.  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 yoke of slavery is being children of the slave woman and that is attempting to be better by the Law and freedom, being Sarah’s sons, is having the Spirit in our hearts and allowing him to mold us. Freedom, in this verse, is freedom from, specifically, the Law of Moses, being used to make us better and freedom in the Spirit to work in our hearts. 

Take a sneak peak at the next verse:

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.

There is a clear choice: circumcision and Law = slavery OR Christ and the Spirit = Freedom.  In this textual context freedom means allowing the Spirit to work in your life and slavery means relying upon law to work in your life.  Let’s plug this meaning of freedom into our verse.

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom (from law, from regulations attempted to make you holier) that Christ has set us free (from dependence upon our own doing). Stand firm, (with the Spirit at work in your heart) then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (This relying upon our own actions to gain advantage with God)

The simple answer to what does Paul mean by freedom in Galatians 5:1 is freedom from using law to make us acceptable.  Note the word acceptable. 

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I could stop there and let you go home, but I am enjoying myself too much to quit. I have to make up for the last two weeks of not preaching.  So, I want to dig a little deeper.  There is a 2nd context which is fascinating and takes us a bit deeper into what is going on in Galatia in 49 AD.  The historical context can help us see how their temptation is still also our temptation.  5 more minutes?  It’ll be good.

The Gentile Galatians were being tempted to be circumcised by the agitators.  Why in the world was circumcision a temptation?  What in the world would motivate them to even consider such a drastic thing?  Two things are going on:

-One, they were used to ceremony and ritual.  As pagans, before they met Christ, they had all kinds of ritual and ceremonies and attempts at manipulating the gods to do their will.  To them, that was what church was all about.  They did all kinds of terrible, mutilating things to influence their gods.  This circumcision and keeping dietary laws, and special celebrations and holy days was right down their alley.  It was a temptation again to slavery. 

Galatians 4:8-9  Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God-- or rather are known by God-- how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

They were being tempted to do it they way they had always done it.  We can understand their temptation.  Church was ritual. “Let’s do it the way we have always done it.” There is a temptation there. 

-But there is a 2nd reason that was even more compelling and is really where we connect to them.  They were kind of lost.  As Christians they were no longer pagans.  They were left out of the pagan stuff in their community. They didn’t play any more in any of the holidays or rituals or celebrations or offering sacrifices.  They were on the outs of their old church going fellowship.

And because they were not circumcised, they were not acceptable to the Jews of their community.  There was a community of Jews in Galatia and they had a great family fellowship.  By being circumcised and living up to the Jewish laws, they could be part of that culture; that family niche. 

But as it was they were dislodged from both cultures; not Gentiles, not Jews.  The Christian community was just begging to form. It was not yet recognized as separate from Judaism.  It wasn’t established yet.  In 49 AD, it did not have much of a family thing going yet.  So, by being circumcised and going along with the Jewish regulations they would be accepted into a known niche.  They would have a family.  They would be accepted by an established group.  They wouldn’t feel ostracized.

That is a powerful temptation.  Am I right?  The desire to belong, the desire to be a part, the desire to have fellowship, the desire to fit in, the desire to share at the table, is huge.   So, these Galatian Christians in 49 AD were being drawn back into the slavery of law, because they wanted to fit.  But Paul is admonishing them to not give in, but rather allow the Spirit to create this new fellowship.  Allow being baptized into Christ to define a new creation, a better family, a community defined by grace, equality and love.  Don’t go back to slavery, stand firm in the new fellowship of the Spirit. 

Isn’t placing the word freedom back in its textual and historical context amazingly revealing?  Wow, we get what Paul is saying.  But more importantly we can now get what it means to us. 

What does freedom in Galatians 5:1 mean to us in 2009?  It is the freedom from meeting any person’s regulations in order to be accepted. It is the freedom to not be judged by other’s expectations. It is the freedom to be in the fellowship of the Spirit. It is living who we are and not living who others expect us to be.

If I live to meet your expectations; if I have to live up to your regulations in order to have your fellowship; if I am forced to meet your standards or I am out; then I am your slave.  But if I live in the freedom Christ has given to me, then I am free to please the Spirit. My fellowship is first with the Spirit and then, as we live in fellowship with the Spirit, we have a family of freedom where neither of us are slaves, but all live in a bond of community based in Christ’s freedom.

Wow, wasn’t that worth it?  American freedom of choice, and no oppression, and free from addiction and no worries are all great.  I am thankful for all the freedoms we enjoy in this country. But the freedom I have in Christ to become all he intends for me to be is a freedom no person can ever take away.  I am free in Christ to be his.  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free!

Los Alamos Church of Christ
June 28, 2009