What do you think of when you hear the word “freedom”? Some of us inevitably think of the freedoms we have as American citizens (our God-given freedoms or rights as the statement goes) we have the right to freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to bear arms, etc., etc. Others, when thinking of freedom, will think of a cultural interpretation of freedom where we are taught that we are free to do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, with whomever we want.

I would submit that when we study the Bible, we often study it within the framework of our earthly citizenship as the lenses of our interpretation. While this is not always wrong (especially in regard to how to apply the biblical principles we encounter in God’s Word) it is important for us to set those lenses aside for a moment and to put on the lenses of proper biblical interpretation. To properly understand the biblical concept of freedom – void of our earthly citizenship for a moment – we must begin to see the text through the lenses of the original author, the original audience, and the particular cultural circumstances of its day.

If we are to think biblically about the topic of freedom, we must locate the main emphasis of the biblical author, the cultural situation of the biblical audience, and the spiritual principles that bridge the gap between that historical situation and ours. Then and only then can we begin to think in biblical categories about the topic at hand.

I say all of this at the onset of this message because – on the back edge of a historical national election such as we have just experienced – it is important to bring our attention back to the biblical concept of freedom, especially in light of how Paul gets after the topic of freedom with his Galatian audience. So, again, what do you think of when you hear the word “freedom”? One author helped me to remember that up until now in this letter to the Galatians, Paul has been arguing that his audience has been set free from the heavy weight of legalism by the finished work of Jesus at the cross and the empty tomb.2

But legalism is not the only enemy of freedom, there are two enemies; the other enemy that we have referred to is the enemy of “license”; as one commentator helpfully says, “liberty must be defended from its two greatest enemies – legalism and license”.3 To put this plainly, Paul has been arguing against the first enemy – legalism – since the beginning of the letter but now he begins to argue against the second enemy – license – in the last portion of the letter. It appears that Paul can see his audience joyfully turning away from the ditch of legalism and then running ignorantly headlong into the ditch of license.

To really think biblically about the concept of freedom we must wrap our minds around the truth that legalism is the idea of responsibility without freedom, and license is the idea of freedom without responsibility.4 I would submit that Romans 7 – 8 along with our current text are great places to think about these two categories. On the one hand, legalism calls us to be responsible for something we cannot achieve through our obedience to the law – namely our salvation which comes only by grace through faith in Christ. On the other hand, license calls us to a kind of prostituted freedom where we do not have to be responsible for anything – do what you want, when you want, however you want, with whomever you want because you have the right to do it and the law has no hold over us anymore.

Can you see how responsibility without freedom (legalism) and freedom without responsibility (license) are neither biblical nor beneficial? Simply stated… there is nowhere in the Scriptures where God calls us to be responsible for earning our salvation through obedience to the law, but he also does not permit us to live out the freedom he gives us in an irresponsible manner; we are not permitted to take our freedom in Christ and use it in an irresponsible way. The freedom we have been given in the cross and the empty tomb of Christ is a responsible freedom.

How many of you thought of “responsible freedom” when I asked the question at the beginning of this message? It is totally ok to admit that the idea of responsibility never crossed your mind! But that realization should show us just how much we all need to come to grips with the biblical concept of freedom! We are free to be responsible. We are not free to live irresponsibly.

But the question remains, what are we free to be responsible for? I am glad you asked!! Here in our text today, Paul has at least three things that our freedom makes us responsible for. We are responsible to fight sin, responsible to love one another, and responsible to follow the Spirit of the living God. Let’s look at the text together.

13For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

16But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

#1: WE ARE RESPONSIBLE TO FIGHT SIN (VV. 13, 16 – 17)

It should not catch any of us by surprise to be confronted with the presence of licentiousness in the church today. Far too many quote-un-quote believers think that because of God’s grace, we do not need to be responsible for living in a holy manner.

I was reminded this last week during a study with our leadership team, that responsibility for living in a holy manner includes holiness in our relationships, holiness in our speech, holiness in our behavior, and holiness in our recreation. Far too often though, we see in the church, a kind of licentiousness that can be defined, as one commentator notes, as “freedom taken to its immoral extreme” or “a liberty of action, especially when excessive; [a] disregard of [the] law or propriety; [or an] abuse of freedom”.5

This is Paul’s concern with the Galatians; he is concerned that they will run from legalism to licentiousness and therefore become irresponsible with their fight against sin and begin to abuse the freedom that was won at the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus. This is why he says in verse 13, “you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh” and then in verses 16 – 17 he says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”

Simply stated, the Galatians, and we, are free from performing the law to become right with God – to be saved from the penalty, power, and presence of our sin – because Christ Jesus won our salvation for us at the cross and the empty tomb. Therefore, we have been set free to fight the current presence and power of that sin in a responsible, Spirit filled manner. The freedom we have been given in the work of Christ at the cross and the empty tomb does not mean that we can indulge or gratify the sinful things we still very much want to engage in. This is why Paul says elsewhere, “Should I continue to sin so that grace may abound more and more? Heaven forbid that I would abuse God’s grace that way” (My interpretation of Romans 6:1 – 2).

Once the Galatians, and you and I, have trusted in Christ for salvation from sin, a war begins between the indwelling Spirit of God and the lingering presence of sin that is still very much alive inside of us. The Galatians, and you and I, do not get to play the victim in our sin. Because of the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus, we can walk like the victors we really are in Christ Jesus as we resist licentiousness and handle the responsibility to fight the sin that wages war deep within in a God honoring way. This is the process of sanctification or becoming holy as God is holy.

Every time you and I are tempted to indulge and gratify our sinful desires, we need to remember that there is a war being waged within us and the dog you feed will be the dog that wins the war. You and I can never become complacent with our sin-filled thoughts, our sin-filled desires, and our sin-filled dreams. We must fight against sin with all the resurrection strength that God has freely given to us. This is why Jesus says in Matthew chapter five that if your eye or your hand causes you to sin then you need to take a brutal stance against your sin and gouge out that eye or cut off that hand (this obviously exaggerated language to emphasize the importance of putting sin to death) because it would be better to go to heaven maimed than to go to hell whole. This is also why John Owen would say that you best be killing sin or else sin will be killing you.

These things have no place in the Christian life: Sexual sin, drunkenness, gossip, slander, anger, laziness, divisiveness, spiritual pride, arrogance, perverted language, crude joking, unholy humor, complaining, arguing, abusive and manipulative coercion… all of these sins and more (anything you can make up that falls short of God’s standards according to Gal. 5:19 – 26) must be fought relentlessly as we seek to walk by the Spirit on the pavement of God’s moral law (as Charles Spurgeon once said).6

We have been set free from the presence, power, and penalty of our sin through Christ’s work at the cross and the empty tomb, therefore we have a responsibility to live out our newfound freedom engaging in the war against our own sin.

#2: WE ARE RESPONSIBLE TO LOVE (VV. 13 – 15)

I honestly think that the topic of love is the most misunderstood and misinterpreted topic both inside and outside the church. We have been conditioned in the church to think of love as an emotion or a desire and we have been conditioned by the surrounding culture to think that love is an expression of self-fulfillment that knows no restrictions. There are even some within the LGBTQ community who advocate for romantic love between minors and adults.

Neither of those definitions or practices of love fit within the biblical category of love. Love is not a noun that describes self-pleasure or self-fulfillment; love is a verb that is self-sacrificing and others-serving. This is why Paul says in verses 13 – 15, “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.” We are called to use our freedom to be responsible in our love for one another.

It has been said that the greatest evidence of love in the church is the way we serve one another instead of destroying each other. When the outside world sees the church sacrificially serving one another – especially those whom we deem to be our enemies – it sees an example of Christ’s sacrificial love at the cross as he died so that his enemies could become family. This is why Paul uses the words “bite…devour…consume” in his instructions to the Galatians; the Galatians were in danger of biting, devouring, and consuming one another because of the theological tension in their midst.

Sadly, all too often, the church is known, not for its sacrificial service as evidence of its undying love for God and neighbor, but it is instead known for its petty arguments, its destructive divisiveness, and its snooty scowls. When Paul tells the Galatians not to bite, not to devour, and not to consume each other, he is employing the imagery of predators with their prey, like wolves devouring sheep. This is why he exhorts the Galatians and us to practice the rule of law by loving each other as we serve one another.

This responsibility we have, to love one another, is an extension of the freedom that Christ won for us at the cross and the empty tomb. He was bruised, bloodied, ultimately murdered, and resurrected on the third day so that in him we would have not only the example of humility and service (as Ephesians 4 teaches us) but that we would also have the example of sacrificial love that is willing to take on the responsibility to die even for one’s enemy.

Here is the deepest reality, our love for others – shown in our sacrificial service – is what proves our love for God; it is one of the most tangible ways we could prove to our enemies that we do love God and that there is a God who loves them.7 If you say you love God but you hate people around you, then you prove that you have not received God’s love and you do not truly love God in return.

Our screaming of the truth from the rooftops of social media or from the signs we hold up in front of abortion clinics or in front of LGBTQ crowds will never win over the spiritual outsiders of this world; only our ability to love and to serve the worst of these will communicate the truth of the gospel to a dying world.

With that in mind, how much more could you and I be responsible to love the people around us? To endure with them in their sin. To extend patience towards them as God has been so patient with us. To intentionally build relationships even with your enemies. To make the phone calls to check in on them. To bring them a meal when needed. To follow up when they have been absent for a while. These things and so much more are just some of the practical ways we can use our freedom to get after the responsibility of loving others.

#3: WE ARE RESPONSIBLE TO FOLLOW THE SPIRIT (VV. 16, 18)

It is a natural thing to run towards licentiousness once you begin to realize that you are not under the law as Paul has already argued for. To know that you and I cannot earn God’s favor, or affection, or attention through our obedience, is something that can cause the natural mind to spin out into licentious living. But just because it is a natural outcome does not mean that it is what God intends for us.

Many commentators going all the way back to Martin Luther and beyond have argued for a paradoxical kind of living that in Christ now lives under grace, on the pavement of the moral law, by the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit.8 This living by the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit is what Paul typically calls “walking by” or being “led by” the Spirit as he says in verses 16 and 18, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh… [because] if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

Again, we are reminded here, that we are not under the law as our tutor or guardian because we are under grace as the Holy Spirit leads us and walks us forward on the strong pavement of God’s moral law. Therefore, since we are not under the law, we stand on the law (especially the moral law) so that we might bring honor and glory to God as we become more and more like him at the snail’s pace of sanctifying growth.

Obedience to God is expected of us – not to earn anything – but because we have been given so much in Christ Jesus, and it is the Spirit of God who does the work of helping us to walk in the kind of holiness that will honor our Father in heaven. It is the Spirit of the living God who enables us to live like Jesus this side of heaven. It is not legalism to expect holiness among God’s chosen and transformed people.

I cannot tell you how many people over the years have tried to convince me that their sinful behavior is something that God led them into and that it is no longer sinful because we are not under the law and that the Spirit of God actually led them to live in that sinful way; as though the Spirit who leads us into the truth now leads us to live in ways that are contrary to the explicit moral expectations of the Bible. It blows my mind to experience the levels of deception that some folks live in.

I have had so-called believers try to convince me that a man attending a strip club to minister to strippers is not sinful. One woman told me that that God called her to divorce her husband because he did not do laundry. A young man tried to convince me that God supposedly called him to sell drugs to his youth group to help them with their mental illnesses. I even had one couple explain to me that they were leaving our church because – in the husband’s words – the wife had made her ability to lead worship into an idol, therefore God was calling them not to attend church anymore.

Many of these folks have of course, talked all sorts of trash all over the place once confronted for their sin. I trust the Spirit to take care of that as he sees fit! It is kind of funny and honestly infuriating to me, the lengths that people will go to, just to justify their sinful lifestyles while even blaming God for their sinful decisions. If I could pass along one really helpful nugget of truth to you, I would say that we need to ensure that when we think we hear the Spirit of God speaking to us, we need to test what we hear by the Word of God within the context of the community of the saints of God. We have a responsibility to follow the Spirit of the living God in obedience to God’s commands as we become more and more holy at a snail’s pace.

CONCLUSION…

In conclusion, I hope we have taken a good look at the biblical category of freedom and the responsibility that has been entrusted to us once the Spirit has set us free in Christ Jesus. If you have been set free by God, by grace, through faith in the finished work of Christ, then you and I have a great and joyful responsibility to represent our Good Father in the way that we fight against our sin, love one another, and follow the Spirit of God. How you live out the responsibilities of your blood bought freedom, speaks loudly to the watching world.

There is an entire world all around us that is desperate for the kind of freedom that only Christ can give. The freedom that Christ won for us at the cross and the empty tomb is far greater than any perceived freedom we may have as created human beings. You can live in the freest culture on the planet and still be headed towards eternal bondage. You can proclaim to know God and to trust in Christ, but if you have no desire to fight against your own sin, or to love others sacrificially (especially your enemies), or to follow the Spirit of God in becoming holy as God is holy, then it is possible that your profession of faith is a fake, cultural, westernized kind of faith in a fairy tale god is ok with you doing whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, with whomever you want.

Fighting sin, loving others, and allowing the Spirit to make us into more Christlike people, these are the hallmarks of what it means to be a Christian who has been set free from the presence, the power, and the penalty of Satan, Sin, and Death. My prayer is that the Spirit would come and set us free from any lingering bondage as it pertains to fighting sin, and loving others, and becoming more like Christ.

My prayer is that we would be set free to joyfully accept the responsibility of representing Christ through our fight against our own sin, as we love others genuinely, and as we surrender to the Spirit’s leading us towards greater and greater holiness at the foot of a bloody cross, in the doorway of an empty tomb, in light of the hope of heaven. – Amen!

1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).

2 Philip, Graham, Ryken, Galatians, Reformed Expository Commentary, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2005), 216.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., 217.

5 Ibid., 216 – 217.

6 Ibid., 223.

7 Ibid., 220 – 225.

8 Ibid., 221 – 225.