Galatians 5:1-15 | The Root of Freedom | Alex Culpepper

We're going to be in Galatians chapter five this morning if you want to open up your Bibles. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Alex. I am the lead pastor here at Renovation Church. It's my joy on Sunday mornings, most Sunday mornings, to be able to open up God's Word with you. We believe that God's word gives clear guidance and step for our lives.

We want you to know God's word. We want this community to be a community that's grounded in. In God's Word. And so, with that in mind, we're going to turn to Galatians 5. If you don't have a Bible with you, we put the passage up on the screen so that you can at least follow along with us.

So behind every what, behind everything. Behind every what, there is a why, and behind every why is another why. And you could, like, kind of keep peeling back the onions here. So I'll give you a what. Here's a good what.

I am bald. Maybe you didn't know, but good job. Well done. You guys handled that well. I'm proud of you.

Why am I bald? Well, here's the reason I shave my head. Okay, so that's an explanation. But then actually, there is a why behind the why. And the why behind the why is that at about the age of 25, my genetics subjected me to male pattern baldness.

Right. And that comes as a result of, like, what's going on in my family. Right. Okay, good. How about this?

Occasionally, you'll run into things either with your house or other houses or maybe buildings, if you've ever done any work on buildings. And you're like, this is really weird that this is built this way. Why is this built this way? So the what is the strange construction, the why? You know, often I just want to let you know it comes from, like, strange zoning codes in your.

In your, like, community. Right. There are. There are laws that were written in your city that are just really strange zoning laws. The why behind the why.

I just let you all know there's a contractor somewhere who had a very particular way of building things, who knew somebody in the local government, and so they orchestrated a plan to. Hey, could you write the law like this so that people always buy my material? Right. Okay. That's not a conspiracy, I promise.

Okay, so one more. One more. What's the what? The what? Healthy trees.

Healthy trees are a good what? Where do healthy trees come from? Well, healthy trees have deep roots. How do healthy trees get deep roots? Well, Scripture actually tells us about this time and time again.

It uses this illustration. You know, the person who trusts in the law of the Lord shall be like a tree planted near streams of water. Like when, when, when soil is in an area where water is like that, soil gets strengthened and, and taken care of. That's really good soil for a tree to grow in. And so one of the things that I love about scripture is that God, God will give us a what.

And then often scripture, he'll. He'll give us the mercy of also giving us a why. But many times God will also give us the why behind the why. And so this morning we're going to explore what that looks like. We're in this series called True Freedom.

We spent the last several weeks in the Letter to the Galatians and in this two part series, this is the second week we're going to kind of look at Paul's concern for writing, the core of his concern for writing to the Galatians. He's honing in on what it means that the Gospel brings them freedom because there are false teachers who are among the Galatians and they're actually challenging the Gospel. They're telling the Galatian believers that they must follow the old covenant law in order to be saved. And so today's passage helps us consider why are there some people who seem to, they hold on to their freedom in Christ throughout their whole life? And why are there some people who seem to drift away from Christ and back into slavery?

And actually because of that why, and because of the why behind the why, it helps us consider what it takes for faith in Christ to endure throughout the entirety of a life. And so Galatians 5, chapter 1, it says this, it says, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, plant your feet. Do not let anything move you from this freedom and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Right?

So he has just spoken to the Galatian people about the reality of a slavery that is enticing them, that's seeking to lead them away from the truth of who Christ is. So if you remember, last week, we talked about the appeal of salvation by works, and in their case, salvation by works of the Old Testament law, that there's an appeal because somebody says it feeds your pride to say, actually you contribute something to your salvation. Like you have something that you have to bring to the table and God wants to honor the thing that you bring to the table. And so you have to fill up what is lacking here, right? You have to bring to completion what Christ started.

And he's saying, you can't, that's wrong, you can't follow that pathway. You have to pull away from that. Everything that Christ did by itself is sufficient for our salvation. And so he's shifting his emphasis here away from slavery and towards what does it mean to get through free and stay free. And so he uses, he says, you're going to submit again to a yoke of slavery.

He says, you have this pagan religion that you used to submit to. And in that pagan religion where you worshiped false gods, you may not know this, but like pagan and occultic religions are full of requirements that you have to fulfill and certain words that you have to say and fear that if you do not perform the right actions in the right way, that you are going to be in danger of something from the hand of these false gods that you worship. He's saying, hey, with your pagan religion, you were enslaved to obligations and rules and threat. And he says, I came along and I shared Christ with you. And when I shared Christ, it was like I gave you a key to get out of the prison cell.

But. But now you're turning to the law. He's saying, like, the door to the prison cell has been open. But by turning to the law, you're just standing in the prison cell and waiting for another guard to come and close the door on you. Like there's a call in freedom to actively take hold of something, to grab something for yourself.

Freedom. You need to know this freedom is not power. Passive freedom. It fights to stay free.

Why now? Why would freedom fight to stay free? Well, because you know how bad it was to be stuck in chains. If you know how bad it was to be stuck in chains and somebody comes along and tells you that you can be free, you're going to take advantage of that. Like you know how bad your situation was apart from Christ.

But then Christ showed up and set you free. Free. And so God's invitation into relationship, you need to know this. It is not about him giving you a different kind of obligation. That's not what freedom in Christ is about.

He's not coming to you in a prison cell in order to keep you there. He is opening the prison doors and saying, would you just come to me? And so it is for a specific freedom that Christ has set us free. He has set us free to know and to love and to adore the only giver of real life. That's what Christ has come to do.

And then to let that life overflow out of us as we adore him. The love builds and changes our heart from the inside out. And then his life overflows out of us into others. And that is something you need to know. That's something worth fighting for.

If you find that, that is something worth fighting for. And so he says, do not submit again to another yoke of slavery. It's interesting. The Holy Spirit spoke something very similar through the Lord Jesus. He said it like this in Matthew 11:28, 30.

He says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and are bound by rules and obligations, and the reality, the recognition that you cannot bear the weight of them, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, take off the yoke that you're wearing, and take on you the yoke that I have. And learn from me, because I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This, this is the specific freedom that Paul has invited the Galatians into. This is the specific freedom that Jesus offers.

Every, every other taskmaster is either burdening you or blinding you. They're piling onto you performance and accomplishment and standard. And they're telling you a lie that as long as you're trying to be good, then that's good enough, right? They're telling you, or this like that, that, that you can be good enough, but you're not there yet. And you won't be there tomorrow, and you probably won't be there in two years.

But maybe one day, maybe one day you'll be good enough to be accepted by God. See those taskmasters, they are not merciful. Those are not merciful taskmasters. But Jesus says, my yoke is not like theirs. My yoke is easy, My burden is light.

And the reason his yoke is easy and his burden is light is because he does not burden you to follow him by proving yourself worthy of his acceptance. You follow him out of a grateful heart for what he's already done.

It's so much easier to love people. You need to know this. It is easier to love people when you don't have to love them out of obligation, right? Like, it's much more joyful to serve people when you're not serving out of obligation. When everything comes, comes out of your heart as a thank you gift to God because of something that you have been given, because of the great things he does for you, that makes something that used to be a heavy burden much, much lighter on you.

But the Galatians here are being enticed to heavier burdens, much heavier burdens, by following the old covenant law. And so he goes on, in Galatians, verse two of chapter five, he says, 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. So I just want to let you know we don't have time to read the entire book of Hebrews this morning, but if we did, we would find a discussion of multiple covenants. And in this discussion of multiple covenants, there is one covenant that is listed list lifted up above all the others.

And it is the best covenant. And so the purpose of circumcision. This is why he's talking about circumcision here. The purpose of circumcision is that it marks a man as one who is under the old covenant of Moses. That's what circumcision did.

It marked a man as one who is under the old covenant of Moses. And so when that man gets married, the covenant then applies to his family as well. So I've used this word covenant many times. We need to know what it is. A covenant is this.

It is a binding, promised based relationship. That's what a covenant is. So it used to be that the covenant of Moses, the old covenant was the covenant by which God would extend blessing to his people and call a people his right. That's how you could be a part of God's people. You would enter into the old covenant.

And everybody entering into the old covenant, every man had to be circumcised in order to enter into that covenant. And here's the thing with the old covenant, the people had promises that they had to keep in order to uphold that covenant. And God had promises that he would keep in order to uphold that covenant. The people promised to follow every aspect of the law. And you know what?

We human beings cannot keep the law of Moses in every aspect. We will inevitably break the covenant at some point. And so God, this is what he did. Because there was this covenant, we could not keep it. God spoke a plan through the prophets that he was going to initiate a new covenant, a better covenant, and that God himself would make that covenant in which God would hold up both sides, right?

So he would hold up your end of the deal and his end of the deal as well. And in that covenant, he would write his law on the hearts of people. Not a law to perform, but a law that flows out of the heart that is changed. And that is the covenant that Jesus ratified by his blood. That's how he signed our emancipation papers for freedom.

And we get sealed into that by the Holy Spirit. The moment that we trust in Jesus, that we believe in Jesus, the blood of Jesus is applied to our lives by the Holy Spirit. And we enter into a new covenant. Not one where we uphold one side and God upholds the other, but one where God upholds both sides of the agreement. So the entry into a new covenant is now marked by Holy Spirit birthed belief in Jesus.

And this is what Christ's blood accomplishes. This is the power of the blood of Jesus. So again, let's look at verses two and three. I say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

Paul is saying, you Gentiles, when these Jews come along and they are requiring circumcision of you, if you decide that you will accept circumcision, you're doing so. Number one, you're doing so in obedience to somebody who is lying to you. He's making that very clear. But secondly, he's saying you have to mark your entry into the covenant in order to be saved, right? That's the point of circumcision.

That's why these Jews are going around and saying, yeah, you believe in Jesus, but you still need to mark your entry and into covenant with Jesus by accepting circumcision. And Paul's saying, hey, would you pay attention to what you're being told to do? You are being told to sign up for the old covenant in order that you may live according to the old covenant. And the great problem with that is that if you live according to the old Covenant, you are then stuck under the obligations of the Old covenant to maintain all of the promises to hold up your end of the deal. And you know what?

Christ is only an advantage to those who know that they can't hold up their end of the deal. If you are. If you think that you're going to go around and try to hold up and maintain this on your own, Christ is of no advantage to you. We've said it like this in weeks past. Life is what we say.

But literally what we're saying is he fulfilled every aspect of the old covenant that we could not fulfill. Then he died for us so that we could receive his perfect righteousness. That's what we get. But Paul's like, I told you this, but now you're signing up so that you can be a law keeper again. You need to know that the way of life that you're signing up for, this is not the new covenant that Christ purchased.

It does not come with grace. It does not come with God's generous power given through Christ. And so he says very severely, in verse 4, you are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. In weeks past, we've defined grace. We've said that grace is God's generous power to do what you can't.

And you need to know, and I need to know that there is only one thing that is keeping us out of captivity in this life and hell and eternal life. And it is the grace of God. The grace of God alone is the thing that keeps us out of separation from God. Now, it does so much more than merely that. But if we will let go of the grace of God, and then we are saying we are willing to pay for our sins.

So remember our conversation earlier? We talked about the what and that behind every what there is a why, and that behind every why is another why. So here Paul is helping us understand the what and the why, Right? The why that he's been discussing. This whole letter is that you're listening to these false teachers.

These false teachers are coming in and they're giving you a false gospel. And this is not the true gospel. And he's been clarifying that. But the what is this. He's identified the what for us in verse four.

The what is that there is a falling from grace of those who seemed to believe that there, or there's at the very least a threat of falling from grace among those who seem to believe.

And so what is happening with this whole falling from grace thing? I want to look at a parable that Jesus told us in order to help us understand the why behind the why. So In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus tells a story about a farmer. That farmer sows seed in four different places on four different soils. So the first soil, he sows it along the path.

And he says, then the birds came and grabbed the seed off of the path. And then the second seed, he sows in rocky soil. And because it's in rocky soil, it can't get any root down deep into the soil. And so the sun comes out and it scorches the plants that he's trying to plant. And so those plants fail and they fall down.

There's a third seed that's sowed amongst thorns and as it's sown amongst thorns. Thorns. The roots of those thorns choke out the roots of the plant so that it can't grow deep roots. They choke, it says that chokes out the life of the plant when the thorns come around it. And then the fourth kind of seed is sown on good soil that produces grain, you know, 30, 60, 30 and a hundredfold.

And so then Jesus interprets this parable. I just gave you kind of the Cliff Notes there. But Jesus interprets this parable In Matthew chapter 13 and verse 19, he says, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, okay, so the seed is the word of the kingdom, the seed is the gospel. The seed is God's word taking root in our heart. So when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

This is what was sown along the path when the birds came and ate it and snatched it away. So he's giving us insight. Why does this falling away happen? Well, the first is that the enemy causes misunderstanding. He said when the seed comes and the person doesn't understand it, the evil one snatches away the word so that it can't take root.

There's some misunderstanding here. The enemy, what the enemy does is follows the preacher of the good news or the one who shares good news, follows them around and creates distraction and creates misunderstanding of the gospel or takes advantage of a cultural reality so that before people really can give consideration to the true gospel, something else comes along, some other understanding comes along and pushes out of, out of the way the truth that has been proclaimed. You see demons. They want to make people and cultures that are unflinching. When you speak words about unforgiveness or sorry.

When you speak words about forgiveness, have you noticed when you share the truth of God's forgiveness with people, and there are some people who like it just doesn't affect at all? Well, that's the result of a culture that over the course of probably the last 120 years, has become numb to the reality of sin. The reality that we have a debt to God, that's a long time. That numbness is a work of the enemy to create misunderstanding. So when you say and speak of God's forgiveness, it doesn't affect them in any way whatsoever.

They want to change. They want to make some other misunderstandings make the blood of Jesus meaningless to people so that it doesn't carry weight. Or some people change the definition of freedom. So that when you speak of true freedom in the Gospel, that the freedom that you speak of loses its significance when it falls on those ears. This is all work of the enemy.

So that's the first kind of soil, the soil sown, or the seed sown along the path. The second seed is in Matthew 13, verses 20 to 21. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the Word immediately and receives it with joy. Like the people who receive this truth seem really responsive to what God is doing, and you really are positive about what what is going on in them. And it looks like they really love Jesus and adore Jesus.

21. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the Word, immediately he falls away. So why does falling away happen? The second one is that some don't anticipate the future cost of following Jesus.

There are those who claim to know and love and serve Jesus, but the Bible tells us that we ought to expect, when we know and love and serve Jesus, that that is going to come with difficulty and persecution, that it's not all just easy, right? And because the reason that this persecution comes, the main reason, is because people don't like to hear a message that, that they need to be forgiven, that they have a debt before God, that they can't do anything to earn God's forgiveness. And so nowhere in the Scripture are Jesus followers guaranteed better life circumstances. If anything, our guarantee is the opposite. And some, as a result, opt to abandon ship when things get difficult in the Christian life.

And so some don't anticipate the future cost of following Jesus. The third seed is in verse 22. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the Word. But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word and it proves unfruitful. So what is this third reason then?

Well, it's the cares of the world. It's the heart that is inclined to get what it wants. We could say it like this, that comfort, status and success fill the heart. Each of these categories up here, these are all the bad soil. These bad soil, they don't have room for healthy growth.

And so as a result, when the seed starts to seemingly grow, it can't develop a good root. And Jesus is telling us that those who fall away do so because the Gospel seed never found the good soil that it needed to grow. And in some cases it looks like it did find that soil initially. But it seems to fall away. And all of these things stop.

All of these things that we have up here, they stop a good, true and genuine root from developing. So I just want to, like, take what Paul is saying and take what Jesus is saying and synthesize it for us, because I want us to get some understanding and some grounding and what really is going on. Why does falling away happen? This is the why behind the why. Falling away happens because they never truly believed.

That's what the root is. The root is true belief. Jesus says that this is the way it would be when the Gospel goes out, that there are going to be those who seem to be responsive to the gospel, but then they will fall away. And if there are those who appear to fall away, it is because the gospel never found the soft soil of humble heart that says, if I don't have Christ, then I have nothing. And because I have Christ, I have everything.

So now I want to be careful here, because Paul is not writing to people that he knows have genuinely fallen. He is writing to prevent them from falling away.

And so the point of this parable is not to give you a diagnostic tool so that you can go around and look and, like, evaluate where people are at and what kind of soil they have going on in their life. The point, Jesus point, Paul's point, the point is that we as individuals, that we would have urgency to make sure that the Word is taking root in good soil in our lives, that we would not let the enemy or that the cost of following Jesus or the comfort of this world choke out what God wants to grow inside of us. This is why Paul said in last week's passage, this is why Paul said, he's like, I am like a woman in labor trying to see Christ birthed in you. I don't want some demonic misunderstanding to come and stop this seed from taking root. I don't want the cares of this world to choke out the life that God's word is trying to provide.

I don't want you to think that the prison cell that you're in right now is safe for you when Christ is standing in front of you and he's holding the keys to your freedom. And so verse five of Galatians, chapter five, it says, for through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves, that is, those of us who are believing and enduring and truly trusting the Lord, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. So here he is explaining where a strong root of faith, faith in the heart, comes from and what causes it. He says that we don't strive to earn a place among God's people.

Circumcision doesn't count for anything. Uncircumcision doesn't count for anything. We receive what Christ has done for us by faith in what he has already accomplished. We look forward to a day when what has already been secured will be fully realized. So when he says that we hope, he's not saying we hope in the sense that maybe this will happen someday.

He's saying that we eagerly look forward to a thing that has already been guaranteed to us. And what I think he's trying to do there is help them see the good soil, right? The good soil is not the obligation of keeping the old covenant law in order to be accepted. The good soil is the freedom of responding in love, only faith, working through love, the freedom of responding in love with to Jesus for what he has already done. So our main point this morning is simply this, that freedom's root is a heart transformed to love Jesus.

When you realize that you have received a gift, that you have something has been done for you that you could not do yourself, it changes your heart and gives you affection for the One who has set you free. It gives you love in your heart for Jesus. It says, christ has loved me. Christ has done what I could not contribute for myself. And when I believe that in the core of my being, such a realization of God's vast generosity towards me changes my heart to love him and to respond consistently in love to Him.

So verses seven through nine, go on and say this. It says, you were running well. Paul's like, I was with you. I spent this time with you. I share the Gospel with you.

You were running well, but somebody has hindered you from obeying the truth. This persuasion is not from him, not from God who calls you. Verse 9, A little leaven leavens the whole lump. So it's interesting all throughout this letter that Paul is actually like throwing jabs at these Judaizers who pride themselves on their Jewishness, right? They he, at one point, you remember in the sermon last week, he compared them to Ishmael, right?

To call Jews as being the same as Ishmael is a very offensive thing, especially since they are descended from Isaac, Ishmael's brother, right? So he did that. Another thing that he's done is he's essentially called their law keeping. He's equated it with pagan worship, right? So that's pretty Offensive for a Jewish person.

And now what he's doing is he is calling their teaching leaven. That's a reference to Passover. And in Passover, do you know what the Jewish person has to do? They have to go and remove every speck of leaven from their house. They have to remove all of it.

And so Paul is telling them that they can't. Even the Galatians can't buy this message, even just a little bit, right? The Gospel is about the sufficiency of all that Jesus has done for you to give you something that you could not get yourself. And if you believe that, even just a little bit of the good things that you do will get you across the line with God, that corrupts the message of the gospel.

So verse 10.

This is beautiful. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view. And the one who is troubling you, it's interesting here, I believe he is pinpointing a ringleader, a specific person who has kind of stirred this up in the church. The one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. So this next line, the next line that he says here is brutal.

It is literally brutal. Verse 11. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted, right? Essentially what he's saying is, everywhere I go, the Jews are persecuting me, right? Like, what is the result of this persecution?

Because the lie that they were telling is like, oh, yeah, Paul thinks circumcision is a good thing. You should go ahead and be circumcised. And Paul's now defending himself and saying, actually, I don't say that. I don't agree with that teaching. And if I do that, why in every single town are there Jews who are trying to kick me out of that town?

Why is that happening? Why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. If I were to do that, that's what would be happening. So verse 12.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves, y'. All. This is the word of God. And it's not me just being crass, right? This is Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit being crass, right?

This is the same Holy Spirit who despises every corruption of the Gospel. This is the same Holy Spirit who despises every demonic false teaching. And Paul says, if they're going to talk so much about circumcision, why don't they just finish the job?

There was a. It's interesting There in, in the area of Galatia, there is actually a pagan cult called the Cult of Cybele. And the male priests of this cult would indeed emasculate themselves as an act of devotion to their God. And so once again, Paul's statement is equating, what they're requiring of you is the same thing as the slavery that you've already been delivered from.

So we'll move on here to so what's so what? Number one. Genuine faith is meant to be tested and proven. Genuine faith is meant to be tested and proven. When Jesus talked about some of the seeds or the plants growing up and falling away, when what he was hinting at is that there is, there are circumstances of this life that will test and it will reveal what kind of soil the seed of the gospel has landed in.

And so we endure first by standing firm in spiritual attack. Right? So we talked about the demonic misunderstandings. These are the spiritual attacks are the lies that come against the believer and the doubts that come against the believer who's trying to stay faithful and rely on the word of God. But there are many other ways of thinking out there.

These are the fears that the enemy puts into people's minds. These are unbelief. All of these things come along, and they are attacks of the enemy. They are flaming arrows of the evil one meant to mislead us from true faith. And so we stand on the truth of God's word and nothing else order to combat the lies of the enemy with the truth of God.

So we stand for we endure by standing firm in spiritual attack. We endure by living in a posture of repentance. So again, he says the next thing he talks about, the cares of the world come up, they choke out the life. And so living in a posture of repentance. I just want to say that this is not the expectation that, that every sin pattern is going to be immediately conquered at the moment of your belief.

The point of this is that it's a trajectory of growth with the Lord, a journey with the Holy Spirit where he teaches your heart to love Jesus more than the benefit of sin. And then he shows you the next thing that he wants to work on. And then you say, okay, Lord, I need you to help my heart so that I can overcome this thing. And then he shows you the next thing and you say, lord, I need you to help my heart. And you keep going and you keep, keep pursuing in a posture of persistent confession and repentance with your Lord.

And we endure finally by loving Jesus through the cost, the Cost is the persecution and the tribulation, right? The cost is when you lose a friend because you're standing firm on the truth of God's word. The cost is when you have friends who mock and deride you because of your commitment to the truth, truth of who Jesus is. And you, you stay faithful to Christ even in the midst of that mocking and deriding in that exclusion. So the question, the question is, is not whether you are perfect.

The question is whether you are enduring and growing. And I love, I love Paul's confidence in this passage. He has, like, such great confidence. He said, I have. I have confidence that you will take no other view.

Even though he's had some pretty intense words for these Galatians, at the end of the day, his confidence is not only in these people. His confidence is in the power of God's grace to hold on to them, the power of God's grace to hold onto their lives. We have this hymn that we sing together, and this is one of my favorite hymns. I have other, many favorite hymns. But.

But this one's important. We sing this together. When I fear my faith will fail Christ will hold me fast when the tempter would prevail he will hold me fast. I could never keep my hold through life's fearful path Though my love is often cold he will hold me fast.

His grace holds on to us. If you would know how much his grace is holding on to you, just transform your heart from the inside out to make you love and serve and worship and adore Him. My second so what this morning is freedom overflows in love.

The book of James actually calls this, this idea of freedom overflowing in love. He calls this the law of freedom. This is the law of freedom. This is the law of love. To finish our passage this morning in Galatians 5:13 all the way through verse 15, but we've just put 13 up there.

For you are called to freedom, brothers and sisters 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.

He literally. This is what he's literally saying, that whole idea of serve, use, but through love, serve one another. That word serve literally means to enslave yourself to somebody else. He's saying, use your freedom to enslave yourself to your brothers and sisters. Right?

This is not an abstract idea. This is a specific call to love. This puts on display the freedom that Jesus has purchased for us. So I would just say, like who? In your immediate community, your home, your workplace, your neighborhood, your church, are you tempted to compete or ignore or withdraw from?

You need to know that the gospel has set you free to love that person. The gospel creates a countercultural love. Not love for those who will love you back, but love for those from whom you have nothing to gain. So I just give you an action step as we close this morning, could you identify with one person this week toward whom you will practice a deliberate, inconvenient, visible service of love? And don't announce it that you're doing it, just do it.

Just love them, right. Let your freedom in Christ move through you towards somebody else. Would you pray with me, please? Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth of what you have accomplished for us in Jesus.

And I ask that you would help the believers here in this church, those who are trusting in you, to stand firm in what you have done for us and to let your grace be the thing that holds onto us.

And Father, would you help our hearts, even now in this partaking of the table, be transformed from the inside out. And we ask this in Jesus name, amen.