Galatians 5:1-15 | Freedom | Br. Tim Banna

Good afternoon, Maranatha Bible Church. Hallelujah for the blood. Amen. So my name is Tim Bana, as has been mentioned, the son of Daniel Bana, and I serve as a pastoral resident at the Orchard in Barrington, where I'm part of a three year pastoral training program that's training up men to be preachers and pastors, through the local church, through theological education and hands on ministry, and it is a joy to bring the word to you all this afternoon. I love this place.

The Lord has done mighty things in this place, in my life, in this church assembly, in the leadership of the pastors here. So I am so grateful to be with you today. Well, would you turn with me in your Bibles to Galatians chapter five? The letter to the Galatians chapter five, and I'll be reading verses one through 15 for us. Galatians five.

For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.

You have fallen away from grace. For through the spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly await for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. What hindered you from obeying the truth?

This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 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.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

This is God's holy word. Well, Lord, we come to you yet again thanking you in the spirit of prayer, the spirit of worship, as we come to worship you through the word proclaimed now. Our Lord Jesus, you said that if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Set people free this afternoon. And for those who are free, would you grant us a greater depth of our freedom in your gospel?

We pray this for your most holy name and glory. Amen. Freedom. We all love freedom. In this nation, we have the privilege of being free.

Free to vote, free to practice whatever religion we choose to practice, free to marry whom you choose, many others. As you know, freedom comes at a high cost. Revolutions, wars, bloodshed. And once freedom is possessed, it is never as secure as we would like it to be. Freedoms can be threatened.

Our freedoms can be stolen. In our day, certain freedoms that we have taken for granted seem to be online. Freedom of speech to name one. Around the world, even on our continent, our freedoms seem to be challenged from multiple angles, and the freedom of Christians globally seems to be increasingly restricted. You may have heard of laws against evangelism, sharing the gospel, leading to imprisonment, even martyrdom, or conversion being outlawed, lest they be killed.

And if and when our physical or civil liberties are taken, will you, like many Christians in the Chinese church, will you remain firm in faith, firm in hope, firm in the grace of the gospel? How might we ensure this? How might we if we are imprisoned for our Christian faith, stay free in heart, free in the spirit, free from compromise, from shame, and from apostasy? Well, this afternoon, I trust that the Holy Spirit will reveal to us the answer from his word in Galatians five. So as we come to the epistle to the Galatians chapter five verse one, look with me there.

Paul begins, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. I'll be focusing our time on this glorious verse, worth being memorized by all of us if it isn't yet. In this verse, the Apostle Paul sums up his thoughts so far in this letter. And he makes a pronouncement about the redemption of believers.

And then he gives two exhortations to the Galatian Christians in light of this truth. So we'll begin by considering what Paul has to say about our redemption in Christ. What is our redemption? And what is its goal? And then we're gonna consider the two exhortations First one, for freedom, Christ has set us free.

Family of God, Christ has set you and I free. This is redemption language. What is redemption? It's a common bible word, but sometimes we hear these bible words and we forget their particular meaning. To redeem is to cause the freedom of a person from bondage or ownership.

It is to purchase out of slavery, to release from bondage, to set free. In Exodus six verse six, God says to Moses, say therefore to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them. And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. The Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians. The Lord God, Yahweh, promised to redeem his people out of this slavery.

God would set them free. Many years later, the Lord reveals a prophetic word to the prophet Isaiah. Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel. I am the one who helps you, declares Yahweh. Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah forty one fourteen. The Israelites to whom this was addressed were in Babylonian captivity. They were exiled because of their perpetual idolatry and unbelief. And the Lord here reassures his captive people saying they have nothing to fear, For I will help you. I am your redeemer, and I will restore you to your land.

I will release you from your bondage. As we come to the new testament in the gospel of Luke chapter one, the spirit filled father of John the Baptist, he prophesies over his newborn son in a hymn. And he says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Zechariah knew that with the coming of his son, John, the coming of the promised Messiah was soon at hand. The redeemer of God's people who would deliver them from their enemies.

We know who this redeemer is, our Lord Jesus. The Lord God incarnate, the great liberator, the redeemer come in the flesh. Jesus Christ is the one who sets once and for all his people free. All of us in this sanctuary need redemption. Because every single one of us and all of us watching online, we are by nature slaves.

We're born as sin's captives, held in sin's bondage. This is the human predicament, that which makes redemption necessary. And for honest, we know this to be true from our own lives. Prior to Christ, we did not seek God. We did not understand the word of God.

It was meaningless to us. We did not love his word or savor the truths of the gospel that we're just singing so joyously this afternoon. We were self seeking, pleasure driven, people pleasing. Our tongue spoke lies, complaints, profanities. We boasted in sins we could get away with.

We may have thought that we had control over our actions, but in reality, we were controlled by our flesh, driven by its passions. We loved our sin and our sin possessed us. Even our outwardly good deeds were tainted with impure, selfish, prideful motives. Some of you are parents in this room. Did you have to teach your children to lie, to steal, to misbehave, to be unkind to their sibling, to grab the toy from them when they just grabbed it?

No. We have to teach our children and discipline them so that they do what is right because they have a natural inclination to misbehave and be naughty. As Proverbs twenty two fifteen says, Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. By nature, we are all slaves. What does the scripture further say about this slavery?

Look with me at Galatians three twenty two and twenty three. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin. Verse 23, now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. The scripture here refers to the law of Moses, which imprisoned everything under sin. This means that the scripture exposed the chains of sin that were on us, which keep us from being able to obey God's law and love him with our whole hearts.

The law kept us in a prison we could not escape because it revealed our sinfulness without giving us the power to o overcome it. Before Christ came with the faith that justifies, and justification is a word that means to declare righteous, to count one righteous. The world was trapped in sin. Further, look with me at Galatians four verse three. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

And nine, formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not God. But now that you've come to know God, rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? So the apostle here is speaking to the Jew Gentile Church, The Glations, he describes their former state prior to Christ as slavery. They were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. These elementary principles were the elementary forms of religion, the basic spiritual principles they believed.

For the Jews, it was the Mosaic law with all their traditions. For the Gentiles, it was their pagan polytheistic religion of many gods, both of which were distorted or influenced by demonic or elemental spirits. The Galatian church and all of us before Christ had been slaves to religious beliefs and practices, slaves to the demonic forces that lie behind all false religion. Those as Paul says that by nature are not gods. As Paul warns the saints in Colossi, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

We live in a very diverse context, very diverse country, demographically, ethnically, religiously, whether it's modern Judaism or Islam, Mormonism or Hinduism, New Age, Atheism, cultural Marxism or agnosticism. Each philosophy apart from Christ, its roots are in sin and satanic deception. That's what the word of God teaches. Beloved, do you recognize the significance of this? As you and I, as we seek to be a light and a witness to our families, to our friends, to our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our workplaces.

We are up against spiritual forces of evil. We're against cosmic powers in the heavenly places that are actively binding unbelievers with demonic power, unwilling to release them without a fight. That's why it's so hard to see people repent and believe. That's why unbelief is normal. So don't be discouraged at your countless attempts at sharing the gospel or praying for your lost family member.

Persevere. Our predicament, our human problem is slavery. God's solution is Christ. Christ sets us free. Galatians four three says, when we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law in order that we might receive adoption as sons. God sent Jesus to redeem those under the law. And how does Jesus do this? Galatians three thirteen says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

So Jesus sets sinners like us free by becoming a crucified curse for us. What is this curse of the law that Jesus became? That Jesus bore. The curse from which Jesus himself liberates us. On verse 10 of Galatians three, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed to be everyone who does not abide by all things, written in the book of the law, and do them.

The Jews in the first century in Jesus' day relied on their works. Their obedience to the Mosaic Law, the Torah, for their justification, for their right standing before the holy God of the universe. And therefore, they were held accountable for perfect obedience to the law. Anyone who failed to keep the law, all of it fell under a curse. A curse leading to God's wrath and his displeasure.

It's also true for us because God is holy and his standard is perfect obedience to enter his presence. All of us who fail to keep his law even at one point are under a curse. A curse leading to eternal death. This is why a redeemer had to come. We needed to be set free from this curse.

We need someone actually able to fulfill the law's demands without fail. Someone who could bear our curse as a sinless substitute. The curse that doomed all of us covenant breakers. There's only one. Only one person who could do this.

The one who was fully God, fully man, the second person of the Trinity, the sinless savior. Our Lord Jesus Christ, he fulfilled all righteousness. He absorbed the curse of God as he hung there on the and in his death. God canceled the record of debts that stood against us with its legal demands. God nailed my debts.

God nailed your debts to the cross of Jesus, so that you and I might be free from our guilt, free from our sin, free for, from our punishment that we all deserve. This is our redemption. Hallelujah. This leads to our second point, the goal of our redemption. Again, Galatians five one, for freedom Christ has set us free.

Why did Jesus set us free? Was it to go back into that prison? Take those chains, lock them back on our hands and wallow there for our days that remain? The point of Paul's repetition of freedom, for freedom Christ has set us free, is that Jesus redeemed us so that we would enjoy this freedom that he has purchased with his blood, this freedom from sin, guilt, and the curse of the law. Sadly, there are Christians who do not live in their blood bought freedom.

Christians who don't live as free because of remaining sin and strongholds and ignorance or deception. Christians who do not daily enjoy the benefits of what Christ purchased at Calvary. Maybe this is you this afternoon. Maybe you don't experience the fullness of the freedom that is yours in Jesus. I have good news that Jesus loves, loves to set his children free.

It may be helpful to further ask, what does this freedom of Christ look like? What does it look like in our lives? What does it look like, and what doesn't it look like? I just want to outline three particular manifestations of the freedom purchased for you by the Lord Jesus Christ. First, the primary freedom Paul is concerned about in this book of the Galatians is freedom from works righteousness, freedom from legalism.

The Mosaic Law of the Old Covenant was marked by countless ceremonies, sacrifices, and civil regulations. It was a covenant of types and shadows pointing forward to the reality of Christ and the new covenant in his blood, the everlasting covenant. The apostle Paul calls the old covenant a covenant of slavery. Interpreting Abraham's family allegoric allegorically, in Galatians four twenty four, Paul writes, Hagar and Sarah are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery.

She is Hagar. But the Jerusalem above, representing Sarah, is free, and she is our mother. We are not children of the slave, but of the free woman. Paul then warns the Galatians in verse one of chapter five to not submit again to the yoke of slavery. Now, some of you may know that the yoke was the wooden bar that joined two oxen or other animals for plowing or other pulling of burdens.

In first century Judaism, the law was described as a yoke. A yoke that the Jewish people were to carry, to pull, to live out, to submit to. 613 laws plus all the added traditions and interpretations of the Pharisees made this to be a crushing yoke. Especially happy because many of the Pharisees were treating the law of God as a means of being justified before God as a means of their salvation. Here Paul says this yoke of the law, the old covenant is a yoke of slavery.

Why? Well, because the law of Moses announced God's will without granting the power to keep it, condemning everyone as covenant breakers. It's only through faith in the coming messiah who was to come in Jesus that saints like Abraham and David could be saved. When Christ came to earth, he came as one under the law, born as a Jew. But unlike everyone before him, every prophet, priest, and king, Jesus fulfills the Mosaic law without a single fail, a single misstep.

Through his gospel, the good news of his atoning death and triumphant resurrection, He offers, as our brother Christian was saying earlier and reading for him for us in Romans, this righteousness as a gift as we were singing in nothing but the blood. The blood which grants righteousness imputed to us, transferred to us Christ righteousness, not my own, but granted to me as a gift through faith. Jesus brings a new yoke, friends. A yoke not of slavery, but of freedom. A yoke not of heavy burdens, but of ease and lightness.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light. A responsibility we are empowered to fulfill by the spirit that he gives to live within us. The Galatians were being deceived into returning into the old covenant laws and regulations like circumcision. Tempted to take back the yoke of slavery, the yoke of meritorious law keeping, persuaded that salvation could not be so simple, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone? Surely, faith is necessary, but faith and certain works of the law.

But this was dead wrong. A grievous error For adding any work to faith as a means of justification is to say Christ and his work is insufficient. To do so is to make Christ of no advantage to you. It's to sever yourself from Christ, to fall from his grace. Verse four.

Martin Luther rightly said, tongue cannot express nor heart conceive what a terrible thing it is to make Christ worthless. You may say to me, well, I'm not tempted to treat circumcision as a means of my justification. But how easy is it for us to fall into a spirit of legalism, of works righteousness, of a spirit of heavy oak Christianity, where the law has a greater place in our life than the gospel? In a church that prioritizes personal holiness and piety, there is a danger of adopting a mentality that is something that we do that counts as righteous. My quiet times, my attendance or service to the church, my generosity or charity, my evangelism, where we function like it's my spiritual performance that will declare me righteous before God rather than Christ's righteousness which clothes me, leading to his spirit wrought holiness in me.

And so in this subtle frame of mind, we begin to submit again to a yoke of slavery, feeling like God's commandments are burdensome. Worship. Friends, Jesus has set us free from the Mosaic Law. He has set us free from works righteousness, from a legalistic spirit, from law keeping as a means of gaining our right standing with God or keeping our right standing with God. It never worked and it will never work.

So walk in your freedom from legalism. Secondly, the Christian freedom is freedom from sin. In Romans six, the Apostle Paul spells out this argument. Verse six We know that our old self was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Verse 14, for sin, Christian, will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace. This is probably one of the most important passages for the Christian in their battle with sin. By faith in Christ, we are united to him in his death and resurrection. This is the doctrine of union with Christ. We share in Christ as partakers of his divine nature.

Our position is in Jesus. You see this language all throughout Paul's letters. Through our faith, our old self, your old self is crucified with Jesus. Your body of sin, the old man is brought to nothing. It means it's rendered powerless.

It's no longer able to enslave you if you are one with Christ. We're not made perfectly sinless, nor are we incapable of sinning, but we are set free from this from sin in the sense that it's no longer our master. It no longer controls us or dominates us. Believer, in your battle with sin, we all struggle with sin. James says we all stumble in many ways.

Every day there's a battle with temptation. And in your battle, do you preach? Do you speak these truths to yourself? For example, Tim, this temptation is strong. Your flesh really wants this.

But Tim, your old self has died with Christ. Your sin enslaved flesh is gone. It's been buried with Jesus. You don't need to give into this. This sin has no power over you.

By the spirit in you, you are free to resist this and flee this. I am alive to God. Christ is in me. New life and victory is mine for I am a new creation. Believer, do you realize that whenever temptation comes your way that the Holy Spirit in you is able to supply every grace you need to say no?

The lie of Satan will be that you have to indulge this. But the truth is you don't. We have an opportunity every day as a Christian, a free choice to either act in contradiction to who you are in Christ, or by the grace of God act in line with who you are as a partaker of the divine nature. See how the church has diversified throughout the years. And I can even see among this congregation here just a diversity of backgrounds, ethnicities, colors.

I'm sure there are quite a few languages and countries represented even here in this church. I know there are. Now some of you may speak a language that is totally foreign to the rest of us. You can speak all sorts of secrets behind our backs and we'll have no idea what you're saying. Your language, you could consider dead to us.

It it means nothing to us. I actually find helpful how the message paraphrase of the bible puts this Romans passage. From now on, think of it this way. Sin speaks a dead language to you that means nothing to you. God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word.

You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did. So the Christian freedom is freedom from works righteousness, freedom from sin, and thirdly, the Christian freedom is a freedom from Satan, from demonic bondage. As we saw earlier in Galatians four eight through nine, Paul rebukes the Galatians for returning to a lifestyle of slavery to those that by nature are not gods. Paul's way of saying demonic powers, elemental spirits, subjecting them to elementary religion.

We're told in first John five nineteen that the whole world is in the power of who? The evil one. The whole world is subject to Satan's deception, lies, his blindening to the truth of the gospel. And Jesus sets us free from the power of this adversary. This is gloriously expounded in the book of Hebrews two verses fourteen and fifteen.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise partook of the same things, flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy the one who has power of death, that is the devil. And listen to this, deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. At the cross, the decisive blow to Satan, the beginning of his destruction, which will be completed at Christ's second return, was given. At Christ's atonement, Satan was rendered powerless to enslave the children of God in the fear of death. Through the cross, we are able to partake in living hope.

Through the resurrection, we have a confidence to face death with no fear of the future because we know we are clothed in his righteousness, destined for the kingdom of God. There might be generational sins in your family, patterns of addiction or abuse. There might be brokenness in your family. Lots of it. There might be demonic strongholds in some area of your life.

Demonic oppression. Maybe because of you or someone else, there's been a foothold for Satan, and it may be stunting your love, your joy, your freedom in Christ. But the good news we have good news. We're Christians. We've got the gospel.

The good news is that he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. That Christ has triumphed over Satan and put him and his principalities to open shame. So that whoever turns to this lamb of God, whoever calls on his name shall be delivered, shall be saved. So walk in your freedom. Seek the prayers of the saints.

Battle trusting in the mighty Jesus to save. Now, because the language of freedom can be so easily misconstrued, we must ask, what isn't this freedom? Look with me at Galatians five thirteen. Paul repeats the wondrous truth. For you were called to freedom, brothers brothers and sisters.

You were called to freedom. That's why Jesus called you to be free. He then clarifies what this freedom doesn't mean. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Don't use your freedom as an excuse to sin.

This is how Peter puts it. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God, first Peter two sixteen. Our Christian freedom does not mean we are free from moral restriction. It does not mean cheap grace that, oh, where sin increases grace abounds, so I can go on sinning all the more. God will forgive me.

God's merciful. That's what he does. That's that's what God does. He forgives. Our freedom is not to be used as a cover up for moral license and looseness, but rather as a gift that motivates us to serve others in love.

Through love, serve one another, Paul says. Or earlier in verse six, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Our freedom from the yoke of the law, from sin's power, from Satan's bondage means we are united to Jesus Christ by faith in dwelt with the spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead and supplied with grace upon grace and all the love in the world to love our neighbor as ourself. To love one another as Christ loved us. So I am, I'm a Wheaton College graduate.

Some of you know that. That's where I met my beautiful wife, Emily. And my sophomore year, there was this, this dinner that was being hosted by another Wheaton student for Muslim students from a local university. So there was maybe 15 Muslim students and 15, at least, professing Christian students, just having Mediterranean food. It it was supposed to be maybe an hour and a half long dinner starting at six, and it's 10:30PM.

We're gathered around in the Lower Beamer Center of of Wheaton College, the student center. We have our chairs in a big circle. The Muslims had called other friends like, hey, guys, you got to come to this. We were talking with a bunch of Christians. This is amazing.

Come join this conversation. So it was just this engaging, rich conversation of back and forth, maybe the first time that some of these students were engaging people of a different faith. And I remember talking about the gospel with them, and one of the Muslims said, well, if if you say God forgives all your sins when you trust in Christ, your your past sins, your present sins, your future sins, then surely that means that you're just gonna go on living however you want. Oh, because God's forgiven you. So surely that leads to moral license.

I said something to the effect of, well, you don't understand. When God saves us, we're given a new heart. A heart that now loves God rather than rebels against God, and with this heart that loves God wants to love him because of his love for us. So we're not motivated by a servile fear of God, but a humble awe and an adoration and an affection for him because of what he's done for us. This was hard for them to understand, and it may be because they bear a yoke of slavery.

Our freedom in Christ is no freedom for the flesh, but it's freedom to willingly, by the spirit, love God in return and love our neighbors. So in some, Galatians five one describes our redemption. Christ has set us free. The goal of this redemption is that we would walk in freedom, and this freedom is a freedom from works, righteousness, from sin, and from Satan. Now let us address the two exhortations the apostle Paul gives us.

For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Why do you think Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gives these two exhortations to the Galatian Christians. These two exhortations to us readers, hearers of this word a couple thousand years later. Because there were for them and there will be for us certain hindrances and threats to you and I walking in our blood bought freedom.

As we see in Galatians, there are at least three of these hindrances. False brothers with false gospels, people pleasing, and persecution. Turn with me a couple pages to, back to Galatians two. Verse three. But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.

Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that they might bring us into slavery, to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. Consider this, the the these false brothers had slipped in to the church of Jerusalem with a distorted gospel. They wanted to spy out the freedom that these Jewish and Gentile Christians were having in unity together, not restricted by the yoke of the Mosaic Law, eating unclean foods. And they were bringing these false brothers a gospel that said, no. You have to you have to be circumcised to be saved.

Now Gentiles need to become Jews first in order to be saved by Christ. Well, this was no secondary matter. This was a gospel issue. So serious, Paul calls these men not just misled Christians. He calls them false brothers.

Unbelievers posing as believers. Sinners posing as saints. These men were, in fact, wolves in sheep's clothing. Wolves who wanted to bring the Jew Gentile church back into slavery. The yoke of bondage and burdens.

Brothers and sisters, there are false brothers and false sisters today. People who slip into churches to spy out the freedom, the joy of and the richness of the fellowship of the saints. People who may claim to be Christian, who may have even deceived themselves into thinking they are Christian, when in reality, they are false. Fake, children of darkness, instigators of confusion, lies, division. Beware.

Beware of such people. How will you know if someone fits this category? Well, the false Christian will try to bring you, Christian, into slavery. They will heap heavy burdens on you. They will try to persuade you to do this or that if you really wanna be saved, or if you really wanna be spiritual.

Yeah. It's Jesus, but it's it's Jesus. It's the gospel and this, plus that. They'll bring a twisted gospel, perhaps one that denies the sufficiency of Christ's atonement, his sacrificial substitutionary death, his propitiation for our sins. What should we do with people like this who trouble churches with their theology?

What did Paul do? We did not yield to them in submission even for a moment. Here, Paul sets an example for us of what to do before telling us to do the same. We did not submit to them even for a moment. We We did not listen to them.

We did not tolerate their teaching, and ultimately, we had nothing to do with such individuals. You see, Paul was a preacher who did not just preach, but not practice. From his personal example, Paul exhorts us, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Do not submit to those even for a moment who bring those yokes. And each local church must be able to identify such false Christians with false gospels and excommunicate them, to purge them from the assembly.

Now, of course, in our local church, there may not be such false brothers or sisters. But with technology, with countless videos on YouTube or TikTok, false Christians, false teachers may surely creep in through naive or immature sheep. And therefore, we must be very vigilant, very careful with what we listen to, who we listen to, what we read, and to walk in wisdom. The first threat to our freedom is false brothers with false gospels. Second is people pleasing.

Galatians two, we have the apostle Paul confronting the apostle Peter because as certain Jewish men were coming from James to his church in Antioch, Peter chose to separate from the gentiles with whom he was eating out of fear of these men wanting to please these Jewish brothers, and he did so at the expense of the gospel. Paul says, when I saw their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said before them all and confronted Peter. Peter's separating from gentile believers would threaten the gospel of justification by faith alone, implying that Christians have to live like Jews in order to be justified. So if we are tempted to compromise our convictions for the approval of others, or tempted to act in such a way that would mislead others as to the nature of the gospel, the gospel of justification by faith alone. Maybe in order to please certain family members or friends, beware of forfeiting your freedom in Christ.

And third, our freedom will be threatened by persecution. You see this in Galatians five seven through 10. Paul was persecuted, he says, and it was because he preached the unadulterated gospel of grace. The Galatians were being troubled, unsettled by certain people who were hindering them from obeying the truth. These were likely the same brothers or the circumcision party who pressured and provoked, persecuted the believers who Paul had led to Christ.

There is a broader application here. In all of Paul's travels, he was persecuted for his gospel by Jews and Gentiles because his gospel was offensive. And we too we too may and will be persecuted for our offensive gospel of the exclusive salvation in Jesus. And it may become easy to loosen, become lax with our convictions for the sake of outward pressures. But may we not.

And may you and I stand firm in the gospel. Stand firm in the truth, never forsaking the truth as revealed in his word for all of our days. Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flamed with light.

My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee. Father, we thank you that we have freedom in Jesus. We thank you that we are liberated by the gospel, liberated by the grace of Jesus at the cross and in his resurrection.

Thank you father that for freedom Christ has set us free. And so Lord, I pray for freedom to be in this church for all of its days. Freedom from every for every believer. For those who do not know you, God, listening or hear, I pray for your freedom by the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon them, to set them free from sin in Jesus name. Amen.