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Once again, good morning. Please turn in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 5. We'll be looking at verses 1 through 6 today. Galatians 5, verses 1 through 6. As you know, been here, you know that we just take the next verse in sequence, whatever book we're working through. We just take the very next text.

We trust that God who orders all things in the universe, who knows our thoughts from afar, is very much alive and active in our routines, and he knows where we would be at in the text. And so we look at that as something that is, by God's providence, the thoughts he wants us to look at this morning.

Galatians chapter 5, verse 1. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold, I, Paul, say to you, that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole law.

You have been severed from Christ. Who are seeking to be justified by the law. You have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love. Well, for those of you who are with us on Good Friday, you know that Good Friday speaks about something that was finished, something that Christ finished.

We spent some time looking at John 19:30 and that statement that Jesus made on the cross. It is finished. It is finished. So Good Friday speaks about something that Christ finished. Resurrection Day speaks about something that Christ began. And we just read it in verse 1. It was for freedom that Christ set us free.

Freedom that Christ set us free. Let me ask you: are you fighting the one you should be following? And maybe you have yielded to Christ. Are you living in the freedom that he accomplished? It's two questions. I'll come back to those as we walk through. Are you fighting the one you should be following?

And there are some here today that may be different. Just that. And I imagine that there are several here today that are not living in the freedom that He accomplished. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. This is the so what of the cross and the so what of the resurrection.

Are you living in the freedom which Christ accomplished? That's a question I want to set before you today, and I want you to ask yourself: Christ freed us to freedom. It'll be a literal reading of this. Christ freed us to freedom. What is freedom? Oh, well, freedom, just in its term here, speaks of liberty.

It speaks of a wide open space. Imagine a bird soaring, if you can picture that in your mind's eye. Picture a horse running across a great plain. It speaks of something that was once confined but now has unlimited possibilities, unlimited movement. Someone from it's gone from smallness to boundlessness, from grounded to soaring.

So are we now where Christ has led. Christ, notice he has set us free. He has set us free for freedom, for this wide open space. His ministry, his accomplishment was to deliver, to free his people. Therefore, verse 1: it was for freedom that Christ set us free.

Therefore, keep standing firm. Keep standing firm. That's the logical conclusion. If Christ suffered to buy you freedom, then stay in the zone of that freedom. Don't come out of that sphere. Keep standing firm. I like how we might say it in Texas. Y'all be standing firm. Therefore, keep standing firm.

Stay in the sphere of gospel freedom. That is Paul's message to the Galatian church. Because as you remember, people are on the verge of going with another gospel, one that involved a performance-based relationship with God. And specifically, speaking about the law of Moses. But even as we go through here today, certainly the law of Moses is what is in view and what is at context, what has taken place, but there are a lot of performance-based religions.

And very easily, We can succumb to them. Notice what he says in chapter 1 and verse 6. I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

God had called them in grace through Christ, and they were turning away to another gospel, a performance-based relationship. So there were these people vacillating. And what Paul is saying to them, stay in the freedom for which Christ accomplished. So since, as we think about this today, since Christ's purpose for setting people free was their freedom, we should live free.

We were freed for freedom. Therefore, we should live free. How do we do that? That's going to be the topic of this morning's message. But more, as we go on, we'll answer this question because that's what chapter 5 and chapter 6 in Galatians is all about: walking in the Spirit, living according to the Spirit of God, not the Spirit of man or your fleshly instincts, but walking in the Spirit.

That is how we live free. And so you think about this in Galatians chapter 1, we looked at the gospel, where we looked at through whom the gospel came to Galatia. Chapter 1 was about Paul bringing the gospel to Galatia. In Galatians chapter 2, we looked at the gospel itself that was delivered to Galatia.

And in chapters 3 and chapter 4, Paul lays out a defense of that gospel that he proclaimed there in Galatia. And now, as we step in to chapter 5 and 6, now we're going to look at what the life in the Spirit looks like. And that's what freedom is about: life in the freedom.

We'll spend a couple of months looking at this life in the spirit as we finish out the book of Galatians. But today, this resurrection morn, I just want to look at this portion of Scripture we have before us, and I want you to see three specific ways that we are to live free.

Three specific ways to live free so that you will take hold of that freedom for which Christ has freed you. So, number one, live free. Live free by not going back to. Slavery. Look back at verse 1. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

Do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. It's obvious. Yeah, if you're going to live free, don't go back to slavery. Very straightforward. Do not be subject. That is, do not be allowing yourself to unwittingly be brought under a yoke of slavery. It is a passive verb.

Somebody is trying to bring them under a yoke of slavery. The idea of a yoke. A yoke is that picture on an ox, something heavy, a plow that they were to work. Picture of an ox weighted down, pulling a plow, a life of servitude. Can't get a more graphic picture of that.

Plowing until he's slaughtered. That's basically the picture. Do not let somebody bring you into the slavery of a performance-based relationship with God, no matter what system that may come out of. Whether it be the Mosaic system, whether it be an Islamic system, whether it be a Christian version, or some other philosophical rationale of how one is right.

With God. Notice how. How? The question: do not be yoked or do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Don't let somebody saddle you down. How were these Galatians becoming enslaved? That becomes the question. They're on the verge of becoming enslaved again. Well, look at verse 2.

Behold, I say to you that if you receive circumcision, we'll stop there. How are they becoming enslaved again? It deals with the issue of circumcision. And so now, we actually finally, in the book of Galatians, come to the specific issue. So far, we've been hearing about these people wanting to go back to the law of Moses, and what was the issue specifically?

Well, it was circumcision. The only mention of it has been in Galatians 2:3, where we got a hint of this, where Paul says, Not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. That is, when they went up to the Jerusalem Council.

But now it comes into full view. Circumcision is the central point. That's what this is, where the rubber meets the road. That's the center point of this controversy. And that's what Paul is addressing. To receive circumcision as advocated by the Judaizers, those who wanted to make Jews out of all the Christians, that kind of circumcision was basically to bring them under the Mosaic law.

Here, you need to receive, if you want to please God, you need to be circumcised. And what they were doing was inadvertently bringing the Christians under the law of Moses by virtue of circumcision. So, to understand what has happened here, we need to understand a few basics about circumcision as it was given to the law.

Paul had been telling them, you guys are talking about the law so much, are you even listening to what it says? But it's clear that as you're working your way through Genesis, that circumcision was merely a sign of the covenant promise that God made to Abraham. Remember, in chapter 17 of Genesis, verse 11, it says, And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you.

Every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generation, cutting off the male foreskin. Now, every one. Of them. Now, as you're walking through Genesis, you realize the Abrahamic covenant was an unconditional covenant. God had already promised in Genesis chapter 12 that all the nations would be blessed through Abraham.

He promised again many descendants in chapter 15, and then he comes to chapter 17, and it's just then that the issue of the sign of circumcision came to be part of the covenant. But all of this was an indication of what God required and what God was going to do.

The covenant with Abraham was already made. It was not a works-based, it was a promise-based covenant. God said what he was going to do, but he wanted a sign to be part of Abraham's descendants forever. As you read Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, God has basically said, Okay, Israel, you're going to go into the land because you don't have a heart that wants to serve me.

That's going to be what's going to happen. You're going to go into the land, you're going to fail because you need a heart that serves me. And in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, This is what God promised to do. Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you might live.

Yeah, this issue of circumcision was God was doing an object lesson of what needed to happen in the quiet, deep recesses of the human heart. Jeremiah 4:4, we read these words, this command to the nation of Israel, circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart, that dirty part of your heart.

Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else my wrath will go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of the evil of your deeds. God's issue with Israel from the very beginning and from Abraham and with all is the condition of their heart.

Clean your heart. You know, Abraham cleansed, was declared righteous because he believed God's word, faith. You see, the value of circumcision historically was not in itself. Just like the value of the Lord's table that we celebrated, or the value of water or the baptism isn't in the water itself, but in the faith that is combined with it.

That these the realities that baptism and the Lord's table point to. And those who combine that with faith, the value is in the faith to which these things point to, not in and of themselves. And that was the same with circumcision. And think about this in their history.

Think about every mother had to see their boys circumcised. Every male had to be circumcised. Everybody understood circumcision. You talk about a daily reminder. Everybody had to go through it and be part of it. The value of circumcision was not in itself. It pointed, every circumcision was a reminder that God wants clean hearts in his people and that God is active in bringing it about.

It was a gracious reminder of what God wanted and what he promised to do. However, when you come to Galatia and much of Israel's history, to the Judaizers, physical circumcision had value in itself. It was a ritual. And if you didn't do that ritual, you had no favor with God.

And if you did do the ritual, you were on good terms. Track to have favor with him. And as you, just by way of review, you know, when we're in the book of Galatia, there were two works-based doctrines that were being taught in Jerusalem or through the Judaizers.

One came from the Jerusalem Council, or the issue that sparked the Jewish, the Jerusalem Council. They were teaching that unless one come under the law of Moses, you cannot be saved. It was Acts 15:1. Unless you come under the Mosaic system, you cannot be saved. There is no salvation outside of Moses.

The second works-based doctrine that was being taught there, specifically in Galatia, Paul articulated in Galatians 3.3. He says to the Galatians, Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh? So the first saw that, well, you can't be saved unless you come under the Mosaic covenant.

The second view said you can't be sanctified unless you come under the Mosaic covenant. So you can kind of think about your three positions. You've got Paul's position, notice by faith alone that you come into a right relationship with God and he used Abraham as an example, faith alone.

The Judaizers know it's through works alone, through works of the Mosaic law, and then you have this middle position. It's faith plus works. There's always a middle position that comes in. This is sort of that middle position. Yeah, we recognize that Christ did the work to get us saved, but we've got to keep going.

In other words, God started the work, you must complete it. God said, Let there be light. And then you said, Okay, God, I'll take it from here. I'll create the rest. That's how silly, to Paul's mind, to think that it took grace to start a work in you, and that somehow you're able to complete that work.

And so both, but both stemmed from the same thinking and led to the same place coming under the Mosaic law as a means to gain favor with God. And so what Paul does in the next few verses is he gives them three reasons why they should not go back to slavery.

He gives them strong exhortation not to go back to slavery. I call them three disastrous implications for those who mix faith with works. Three disastrous implications for those who mix faith with works as a Means to improve one's standing with God. So we're going to look at these three disastrous implications.

First, look at verse 2. Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Christ will be of no benefit. That should be an arresting statement to us. Christ is of no benefit to those under the law. Christ is of no benefit to those who think they can earn their favor with God.

No benefit. It's a future verb. Christ will be of no help to you. Christ will provide you no assistance if you look to the law or if you look to philosophy or different religions, whatever, if you look to something else for you to meet God's standards of righteousness.

If you look to any other source other than Christ, Christ will be of no help for you. And I mean Christ alone. Because Christ does not share his glory. Either you will recognize your need for his help or you will prove you needed his help. That's the way it is.

Either way, he's the only Savior, and the world is going to know that. You remember when we were down at the old campus downtown? Some of you may have been around long enough to remember the $12.50 man. You guys remember the $12.50 man? Well, he was one of these bums that would hang around, and he had the story, and it was the same story.

He never changed it. And he always wanted $12.50. So that's why we called him, well, there's the $12.50 man. Hang around a little while. He'll ask you for $12.50. Well, one day, he comes up and starts going down his story. And his story went something like this. And I really think he ought to, I wanted to give him some advice.

At least change your story. But he didn't. Or not significantly. Anyway, he comes up to me and he says, you know, my wife is really bad. She's down in Navasota. She's about to die. And I need to get her her medication. I need to get it to her just as quickly as I can.

But my car's got a flat, and I need $12.50 to fix that flat. And I said to the $12.50 man, get in the car. Get in the car. He jumps in the car. I start driving down Texas Avenue. He goes, Where are we going? I said, we're going to Navasota to take care of that alien wife of yours.

We don't have time to get a tire. Fixed. She's in bad shape. We got to get there, and you need to give her that medication, and we need to get there quickly. So we're driving down. He says, You know what? Pull over here. I think I can take care of the situation myself.

So I pulled over and let him out. You see, what he was saying is, I don't want you to solve my real problem. I don't want you to solve my perceived problem. I just want your $12.50. That's what I want out of you. But the question is: did the $12.50 man really want my help, or did he want things on his own?

And that may be a poor example, but it gives you an indication. You see, when a person comes to Christ, what that person is doing is confessing a need for what Christ is giving. Do you want Christ's help or not? If you think you can meet your own needs, you don't need Christ.

That's why it's impossible. If you think you'll take a little bit of Christ and a little bit of that, then Christ is of no benefit to you because Christ is for those who need Him. That's why you don't mix faith and works. Or why faith isn't based upon works.

Now, works are based upon faith. We'll see that in a little bit. I loved how John says. Stott said this. It is impossible to receive Christ, thereby acknowledging that you cannot save yourself, and then receive circumcision, thereby claiming that you can. Doesn't make any sense. If you do not trust Him solely as Savior, you reduce Christ to a mere good luck charm or another source of good karma or something else.

Either He is Savior or He is not. And you must come to Him as Savior, or He is of no benefit to you. You can't have it both ways. Christ is, that's why Christ is no benefit to those who trust in themselves, even a little bit, to meet God's righteous standards.

It's not true. And that's what Paul is saying: it's not true. You must be saved. He is the Savior, and you cannot save yourself. And that's what the law is declaring. Second, disastrous implication of mixing faith and works. Those who come under one aspect of the law are under obligation to the whole system.

Verse 3. Look what Paul says, and I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is. Under obligation to keep the whole law. If you are receiving circumcision, and the idea is as a matter of obligation, as a principle to earn God's favor, that's what's in Paul's view here.

If you are receiving, if you're one of these receiving circumcision in context, thinking that this is some way that you earn favor or is the principle by which you earn favor, that's what he's talking about here as a means to favor. See, Paul didn't mind circumcising Timothy for the purposes of opening up greater avenues for the gospel.

Paul circumcised Timothy, not because he believed that Timothy needed to be under the Mosaic law, either for salvation or sanctification, but it was effective for their ministry among Jews. And so Paul had no problem with circumcision in that context. He'd have no problem with circumcision for health benefits or whatever there may be.

But he did have an issue if you brought it under as a debt to the Mosaic law. And he's saying, look, if you are receiving this as a principle of gaining favor with God, then you're under the whole Mosaic system. To embrace any aspect of the law, you then become subject to the whole.

It's a matter of legal jurisdiction. Who is your authority is the Mosaic law. If you're coming under its legal jurisdiction, then you come under its legal jurisdiction, its whole thing. And it speaks a lot more than just about circumcision. In fact, in Deuteronomy 27, 26, Paul has already quoted this, Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of the law by doing them.

That if you're going to start under the law, if you're going to go, if your principle is, and your jurisdiction is under the law, is being under the law, then you're under it all and you need to obey it all. But that's how one becomes enslaved to the law or to any other works-based system.

Yeah, what they're saying is, I need to please God this way. I need... No, no, it's a. And by the way, if you think about this, you think there's liberty under the Mosaic law, the disciples are like, look, none of us could obey it. None of our ancestors could obey it.

But look at what happens. What happens is, if you think about you're under the law, guess what? Your focus is off of Christ. Well, let me deal with that. Your focus turns away from Christ, and what you do, you're starting to look at all these laws, and all of a sudden, the more you know, the more you realize you transgress, the more you realize what a loser you are in God's.

Eyes, and the focus is on yourself, you're navel-gazing, you see all the ways you fail, and you've got this huge burden, and you keep failing and keep failing, and so there is no assurance of God's favor, only a fearful expectation of judgment for failing. But it turns the focus away from Christ, who meets the righteousness of the law to self.

But there's a third disastrous effect or implication of going, embracing a works righteousness, and that is, those under the law are outside the sphere of grace. The moment you depart for a performance-based system, and I mean it creeps up. This is why Paul's saying, stand firm. This stuff will creep up on you.

You'll inadvertently become under the traditions or teachings or authorities of men and not be under the authority and teaching and the grace-given ways of the Lord as revealed in His Word. But look at verse 4. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law.

You have fallen from grace. The word severed means in a state of disconnection. You are in a state of being disconnected from. Christ. And by the way, he's the only one who ever has kept the law. And those of you who are seeking to be justified, that is, those of you who are wanting to be declared righteous by the law, are in for a very rude awakening because it wasn't given to declare anyone righteous save Christ.

But the contrary, it was to condemn all, to shut all up under sin, so that the Savior would be revealed for who he is. God is going to exalt Christ. He wants his work to be seen. He's not going to give his glory to another. Only the Son of God can save like this.

We cannot save ourselves. The chasm between us and God is so great. His righteousness and where he is is not something we can muster up all of our ability to achieve. It's so beyond that. But God reveals us to bring us to it. And he shows us our need of him.

We need to clean the heart. And that's something he is going to do. Notice how he says, you've fallen from grace. Fallen. Fell from grace. You have fallen from being joined to Christ. Same verb is used to describe running aground among the rocks, being driven to a shipwreck.

The idea is fallen from what? Fallen from grace. Fallen from grace as a principle. This is not, Paul is not addressing, well, you just lost your salvation. That's not where he's going at all. He's talking about the sphere of God's favor. The whole context is: you have law and you have grace.

Those are spheres, jurisdictions. Under which do you belong? Are you under a performance-based relationship with God, or are you under a grace-based relationship with God? That's the issue. Christ is the sphere of God's favor. And those who are in Christ are in His favor. I love Christ's work.

It is finished, is what He said. Christ's work justifies me. And He justifies all those who are in Him. And look at what I had to be justified against. I had to be justified against all of my bad deeds, but I also had to be justified from my lack of good deeds.

But Christ's work is in opposition to all of my bad deeds and all of my failure to do good deeds. Christ's grace covers all that. To be outside of Christ is a horrible condition. Think about it. No atonement. To be outside of Christ is to be outside the benefits which he gives.

There is no atonement for you. There is no forgiveness of sins. There is no righteousness implanted in your heart. There is no true liberty. There is no life. There is no merits of Christ attributed to you. Yeah, to be outside of Christ is that you are now outside of the principle of God's favor and the means by which he accomplishes that favor in your life to a performance-based relationship.

And those can get really nasty. You start redefining God. You start bringing God down to your level. You start, there's all kinds of ways that you start trying to cover your sin and trying to blame it on somebody else. So, but it's for freedom that Christ freed you.

So live free. How do you live free? Well, first of all, by not going back to slavery. Second, how do you live free? By waiting in faith. By waiting in faith. Look at verse 5. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.

Notice how Paul changes from you to we. Paul was somebody who lived in freedom, and he is explaining that freedom. They are in bondage who seek to go back under the law into a performance-based relationship with God. Boy, just think if you're, you know, what is a dad supposed to be?

Just think if your relationship with one of your parents was to all be on your performance. Well, you wouldn't have much of a relationship. But dads are supposed to be grace-based, right? You're part of the family. Well, that's the idea here. Notice faith. We through the Spirit by faith.

Living free involves a life of faith in the Son of God. The kind of faith through the Spirit that comes through the Spirit, the kind of faith that is born from above. Not the kind of faith that is born from the earth, not a fleshly, earthly kind of faith or excitement about the supernatural or superstitions of hocus pocus and all that kind of stuff, but the faith that comes down from above.

That illuminating work of the Holy Spirit and that empowering work of the Holy Spirit that raises the dead and gives us a thirst and a hunger and a love for Christ and a love for the things that we never had a taste for before. That's the illuminating and empowering and resurrecting work of the Spirit.

For we through the Spirit, by faith, a life of faith, generated by the Spirit, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. What is hope? Hope is not wishful thinking, but informed by faith. It is a confident expectation. Think of hope as a confident expectation. We are waiting. We are eagerly awaiting.

That's the idea. We are eagerly and patiently and confidently waiting for righteousness. What is he saying there? He's saying, look, we are not perfectly righteous at the moment. Not even my wife. But she's pretty close, a lot closer than I am. We are not perfectly righteous, but by faith through the Spirit, we are eagerly awaiting the completion of our righteousness.

It will come. God will complete what he began. What he began in grace, he will complete in grace, and we are absolutely confident of that, and we look forward and eagerly expect the day when it shall appear. And he will resurrect our bodies. He will put us into a state, a glorified state, where we reflect him.

New body. And meanwhile, while we are waiting, you know what we do? We live free. What is the kind of freedom? And this is a good place to think about this. What is the kind of freedom that Christ has in mind? Well, it's not a fleshly freedom to do whatever you want to do.

No, that's slavery. In fact, Paul's going to address that issue as we go on. No, he didn't free you so that you could go serve the dictates of your flesh. That's not freedom. That's fleshly living. That's slavery. But he's talking about. A freedom of a right relationship with God.

A freedom of a right relationship and knowing that you are in a right relationship with God. A conscience that understands, that has been informed by the teaching of faith, and has created a hope and an eager expectation, a confident expectation of things to come. And so we live free, secure in our relationship with God.

That's the kind of freedom. And it touches upon a lot of things. And I wish we had time just to go through. We'll go through some. We'll look at some. But which are you? There are those who live in fear and doubt. That's slavery, context. Then there are those who live in faith and confident expectation of good things to come.

That's freedom. Do you live largely in fear and doubt? Then you live in slavery. But then there's another kind of living, that which is by the Spirit. It's a kind of living that is in faith and in confident expectation of the good things that are to come. That is freedom.

Knowing you are in a right relationship with God brings freedom. And that's the freedom for which God, which Christ has accomplished. That's the freedom for which we are freed. Think for a moment about many of the demonic goliaths, if I could use that term, the demonic goliaths that plague humanity, filled with lies.

They taunt us. One of them is God's wrath. Do you see God as angry? What is your image? Do you see God as someone who's just angry with you? You haven't been informed by faith. And now I tell you, there's a tremendous liberty that comes over a person when that person is assured that God is not angry nor ever will be angry with them, but that God will forever be a merciful and loving Father.

There's a freedom in that. And then there's law, freedom. Do you see God as an accuser? Some miser that just is waiting to catch you? And punish you? Ha ha! Is that your picture of God? Then you are enslaved because that is not the God of the Bible.

There is an accusing power in the law that tells you you have to justify yourself before God. You have to explain why you sinned. You remember Adam? Boy, how did that look? God, it was the woman's fault. Actually, it was your fault, but it wasn't my fault. God said, You know, you're right.

I messed up this whole thing. Stay in the garden here. Get back in. No, he's like, get out of here. But faith, faith sees the law as our friend. A friend that reveals to us the righteousness of God, a tutor that drives us to Christ. All my sins and all my shortcomings cause me to look to God's perfect gift, his perfect sacrifice that he has given to me.

It drives me to Christ. That's what a life of faith does. Oh, and then there's sin, that demonic Goliath of sin. Did you see God as unforgiving? What is your view of God? Do you see your sin as a Unforgivable that you have outsinned God? Well, then you're enslaved.

You have no idea who the God of the Bible is. Listen, the condemning power of sin is great. It will terrorize your conscience and it can drive people to despair. It can make people do irrational and very uncharitable things to cover their sin, to excuse their sin, or to blame others for sin.

That is a life of slavery. Oh, but there's great freedom when you have the sacrifice. You know, God, you're right. Just green. There's freedom. And to know that God is forgiving. God's the one who started this task with you. God's the one who wants to finish it. God's relationship with you is grace-based.

If you can see that, you are free. And I mean a whole different kind of life. I mean, you're out there in the open, wide open. Space, freedom. Faith sees God as forgiving, relies on his forgiveness, and then is able to go on living. That is freedom. Oh, then there's that Goliath of death.

Does death frighten you? For many, it's the most horrible thing in the world, isn't it? Fear of the unknown. But faith sees breakfast. Beyond the moment of death, to the glory that awaits on the other side. Faith sees the new body. Faith recognizes that God is not only our defender and protector and provider in this life, but that He will resurrect us from the grave and He will give us new bodies.

We will see our beloved in Christ again. We know all that is coming, and so that shakes the way we live now. We are not bound to the fear of death. You see, all these demonic Goliaths lie and they lie, and then we see David, the shepherd, and we are informed by the truth.

And then there's the fear of Satan. You see, God is powerless over evil. Perhaps, why is God allowing sin? Well, He is going to crush the power of sin and the devil forever. Faith sees the power of God. Faith also sees the restraint of God because He loves people and He is saving them out of the power of evil.

We could go on. What about hell? Hell is another one of those fearful monsters, Goliaths, that loom large in the conscience. Some punishment, eternal. Do you see God as a condemner? Do you think that's what he's about? That God is just waiting to condemn you? Then you don't know the God of the Bible.

He's not waiting to condemn you, He's waiting to save you. Stop fighting the one you should be following. Think about the fear of men. Freedom is, we're not bound to the fear of people. Faith frees us from the fear of men, from men's superstitions, from men's erroneous teachings, or from men's pressures to conform to their false systems and ideologies, and all that religious rabble and all the rhetoric therewith we are free from when you're informed by faith.

Truth of the gospel. This is just a snapshot of the freedom that Christ freed us for, and it's an open space. But we must move on. Live free by not going back to slavery. Live free by waiting in faith. Finally, live free by working in love. Working in love.

Verse 6: For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love. Notice he starts this verse. In Christ. That's the sphere of God's favor. In Christ, coming to Him as who He is, taking Him up on what He offers, and you become in Christ.

Christ is that humanity that is well pleasing to God, and in Christ, neither circumcision nor circumcision means anything. The word for means there is capable of. You could read it like this: Neither circumcision or uncircumcision is capable of anything. It's not going to accomplish anything. What does accomplish something?

The way you relate to Christ. But faith working through love. The way you relate to Christ is what really matters. Faith in Christ is active and it accomplishes good things. But to reject God's Son is to say, you know what, I can live up to God's standards, or I can bring him down to my standards and get over them.

I can and I will live up to whatever the maker, whatever he's like, I can live up to whatever he expects, whatever he is, or whatever he may be like. But we know who he is. No one else has been raised with power from the grave. There he is.

That's what God says. There he is, right there. You see him. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And you know what? God takes no delight in those who despise Jesus Christ. We're all to treat him as a person of great magnitude. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love.

Love. Love for God. Love for each other. That's the spirit of sonship. That's what faith in Christ through the Spirit does. It connects us. There it is. The whole law. Loving God and loving each other as God loves them. The whole law. You see, to love someone is to be willing to be poured out for another one's well-being.

And in Christ's context, largely their eternal well-being, first and foremost, but also their temporal. See, it's of no use to help somebody gain the whole world, but then they end up losing their soul. So we should be about people's eternal well-being, and very much so about their temporal well-being.

The two are connected. Well, I want to think through this quickly. Live free. How do you live free? By not going back to slavery, by waiting in faith, by working in love. Look, friends, I'm going to give you a news flash. I'm not God, and neither are you.

You can either choose to trust your Creator and step into His designs for your life, or you can spend your life fighting him. Where are you this morning? Are you fighting the one you should be following? Listen, you don't need to be afraid to come to Him. Let the cross and the resurrection inform you.

Let them speak for themselves. Listen, for God to reject anyone who genuinely comes to Him, He would have to declare Christ's sacrifice insufficient. He would have to make Christ unable to fulfill the many promises He made. He promised to receive everyone that would come to Him. Therefore, let me just think about, let me quote Luther here for you.

Therefore, if Christ appeared in the likeness of an angry judge or lawgiver that requireth a straight account of our life past, Then let us assure ourselves that it is not Christ, but a raging fiend. For the Scripture paints Christ to be our reconciler, our advocate, and our comforter.

Such a one he is and ever shall be. He cannot be unlike himself. You see, you really celebrate the resurrection when you embrace Christ's finished work on the cross. He finished something on the cross. And then he began something with the resurrection. And so the resurrection is a call to you today to a new life.

That's what the resurrection is. It's a call to a new life. To start believing in the one you should be following. And if you are already following him, to start living in the freedom that he accomplished for you. Start living in that more deliberately. For that, there's a wide open space.

You were freed for freedom. Walk in it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the truth and your work that you imagined a great space for us to live. Many possibilities of righteousness all around us, many expressions of that. Father, forgive us where we have sinned against you and we shrink our world down.

To such smallness. Father, thank you for the work of Christ who opens up so many new horizons of freedom. Father, help us to walk in that, to walk in that for which you freed us. Help us to walk in the freedom that you freed us for. In Christ's name, amen.