Sunday LinkUP – June 29, 2025 – Galatians 5:13-25

SERMON

The Freedom to Be Free

Galatians 5:1, 13–25 (NRSVUE)

The United States (U.S.) will be celebrating the Fourth of July later this week, and it will have been 249 years since July 4, 1776, when the United States of America was born. You might be surprised to learn that in the foundational document of the U.S., the Declaration of Independence, the word “freedom” can’t be found. Instead, you’ll find the word “liberty,” along with “life” and “the pursuit of happiness.”  In the years since our nation’s beginning, the word “liberty” has been replaced with “freedom,” which is typically defined by most people as the ability to do what one wants without hindrance.

This definition gets us into trouble.  Here’s an example from the Fourth of July celebration.  Some people want the freedom to set off lots of fireworks in their driveway or yard while others are concerned about safety, noise, or the potential for fire and other property damage.  Freedom is one of those words that can’t be experienced in its fullness except in solitude when we attempt to live it as it’s typically defined.  Living in community requires a tension to express freedom without jeopardizing the freedom of those around us.

Our sermon text, in Galatians 5:1, 13–25, talks about a freedom that is much older than the United States:

For freedom Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5:1 NRSVUE

The “yoke of slavery” referred to is that of sin and  legalistic  rule-keeping, which keeps us in a cycle of discouragement, shame, and failure.  As we grow in Christ, we are freed from the desire to control others.  Instead, we are free to love and be reconciled to them, even those who are our enemies.  Let’s read the sermon text.

Galatians 5:13-25

¹³ For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use  liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  ¹⁴ For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!   

¹⁶ I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.  ¹⁷ For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.  ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are:  ^[a]adultery, ^[b]fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, ²¹ envy, ^[c]murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ^23 [d]gentleness, self-control.   Against such there is no law.  ²⁴ And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  ²⁵ If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.  

The context of Galatians

One of the main themes in Galatians is unity within the church. Theologian N.T. Wright says this: “Having argued for the theological singularity of Abraham’s family, Paul is now arguing against behaviors that would break up that single family.  The whole letter is about church unity” (p. 432).  Based on Galatians 5:15, Wright infers that “Paul is addressing a situation where angry factionalism, fueled by sociocultural pressure and threats from the outside, is threatening to tear the little Christian communities apart and that this is the real point of chapter 5” (p. 432).

The second unexpected aspect of the passage is found in Galatians 5:19–23 where Paul mentions issues of conceit and jealousy, which seem out of context for the argument about theological ethics.  Wright says:

Paul again seems to be addressing a particular problem: people are bringing a competitive sociocultural mentality into the church … Perhaps there were small groups arguing for subtly different positions, which would then splinter again … as people shunned one another or threatened not to do business with one another, teaching their house church and their children that this was the ‘right’ way to follow Jesus (p. 432).

Wright’s point again emphasizes that unity was Paul’s intent, and that to achieve such unity and harmony, the Holy Spirit was necessary.  The Galatians needed to practice allowing the Spirit’s fruits to be produced within their midst, and Galatians 5:13–25 pertain to Paul’s practical application of this.

Paul seeks to convey that while the law (i.e., the Torah) might seem to provide a legalistic answer about how to live a moral life, it falls short of bringing God’s vision of love to earth.  Sure, it gives a sense of certainty to have a detailed list of acceptable practices, but with the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Galatians are called to live and “inhabit the dangerous social space as a new kind of community in a suspicious and hostile world … within the risky open-ended moral space as a new kind of human being” (Wright, p. 456).

Let’s consider what freedom requires of us and what living by the Spirit means.

What freedom requires

Paul begins in Galatians 5:1 reminding the Galatians that they are free from the law, as are all of Abraham’s children, including us.  Freedom is our birthright in Christ.  But Paul quickly follows that up in Galatians 5:13 with a reminder that freedom doesn’t mean being able to do whatever you want.  We find that Galatians 5:13–25 explains the practical application, including the placement of appropriate boundaries.

Paul writes of our freedom within the context of being chosen by God.  New Testament Professor Emerita Sarah Henrich writes this:

To be chosen by God for freedom, to have been freed by Christ is to have been freed from the dire results of life lived apart from God.  It is also a call into freedom that in some ways mirrors God’s own, that is a freedom dedicated to serving others in love.

This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17 NRSVUE).  In our freedom through Christ, we are living the law laid out in  Galatians 5:14  and echoed in Leviticus 19:18: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”  By positioning an individual’s freedom as subservient to  that person’s responsibility to the community, we can be agents of change in the world, promoting love and service.

In Galatians 5:16–21, Paul elaborates on some of the areas with which human beings frequently struggle.  If we consider those various problems, we can categorize them mostly as interpersonal issues we wrestle with.  We compare ourselves to others, forget our unique status as a beloved child of God, or seek power and control over others rather than their highest good.    N.T. Wright points out that Paul is likely referring to actual problems that the church of Galatia was facing.  These issues “are producing such anger and tension that things are turning nasty, with the threat of actual violence, mixed with a social point-scoring whose specifics are lost to us but whose reality comes across clearly in verse 26” (p. 458).  Wright also clarifies the use of the words “works,” saying:

… we should not suppose that Paul thought the ‘works’ were only surface effects while the ‘fruit’ came from somewhere deeper.  On the contrary: the ‘works’ proceed, as he indicates elsewhere, from the deep recesses of the fallen human personality (Wright, p. 458).

The “works of the flesh” Paul refers to have destructive outcomes.

In their efforts to solve the tensions they faced, the Galatians erroneously thought that keeping the Law (i.e., Torah) would help them restrain selfish and self-serving impulses.  Paul reminds them in Galatians 5:2–12 that keeping the whole law, including the practice of circumcision, was not following the Holy Spirit within them. Barclay’s Commentary writes:

It was Paul’s position that the way of graceand the way of law were mutually exclusive.  The way of law makes salvation dependent on human achievement; the man who takes the way of grace simply casts himself and his sin upon the mercy of God.  Paul went on to argue that if you accepted circumcision, that is to say, if you accepted one part of the law, logically you had to accept the whole law … To Paul all that mattered was faith which works through love. That is just another way of saying that the essence of Christianity is not law but a personal relationship to Jesus Christ.   The Christian’s faith is founded not on a book but on a person; its dynamic is not obedience to any law but love to Jesus Christ.  

Thus, the freedom we enjoy in Christ requires us to refocus on becoming more human in the way we treat ourselves, our bodies, other people, and their bodies.

Since the purpose of Paul’s letter to the Galatians was the unity of the church, this unity requires church members to conduct themselves in certain ways. Wright says that “unity can never be purely a theological truth with no real effect on the way church members behave toward one another” (p. 463).  Rather than our human lives being “all about me,” we shift our viewpoint and interactions to include our collective responsibility to the wider world.

Living by the Spirit

As we consider Galatians 5:22–25, we learn what becoming more human means.  Wright refers to this as “rehumanization,” or “becoming more fully human together” (p. 469).   He points out, “One of the glories of the gospel of the crucified Messiah is that there is a different way to be human” (p. 463).  Notice that this isn’t a solitary activity, but a way of living and being in community.

We notice that the first fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22 is love, echoing the wording found in Galatians 5:13–14.  The gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost “fulfills what the Torah wanted to do but could not” (Wright, p. 460).  Our “rehumanization” begins with love: love for God, for self, for others, and for the earth, God’s creation.

As we read further, the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22–23 don’t happen naturally or without effort.  Like a fruit tree must be watered, pruned, and protected from pests and strong winds, so we must think about and practice the fruits of the Spirit.  We must consider how we nurture the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  For Paul, character mattered, and “the gospel was designed to bring healing and hope into distorted and disfigured human lives” (Wright, p. 468).

Merely viewing Jesus as a good person whose example we should follow, has led to a religion of belonging to a church (like membership in a social club) and believing a set of tenets, without any outwardly demonstrate fruit.  Discipleship is a lifelong journeyof Jesus, by the Spirit, conforming us to his image.

Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr writes this about the true freedom of the gospel:

Without God’s definition of freedom, we will continue to use the gospel as if it were a product that can be bought, sold, imposed, or attained. The gospel is not a competing ideology that’s threatened by anything outside itself. It is the light of the world that illuminates the whole household; it is the yeast and not the whole loaf; it is the salt that gives flavor and nutrition to the much larger meal … Once we can accept that Jesus has given us an illuminating lens by which to see and measure all things, we can no longer treat Christianity as a threat — or allow it to be a threat — to human or cultural freedom … The gospel is a process much more than a product, a style more than a structure, a person more than a production. It is a way of being in the world that will always feel like compassion, mercy, and spaciousness (p. 14–16).

Galatians 5:24 speaks of the crucifixion of the flesh with its self-absorbed desires, and we can rightly interpret this as an ongoing outworking of Christ’s crucifixion.  We read in Colossians 3:5–11 that we must participate routinely in Christ’s “putting to death” of the works of the flesh to permit the flourishing practice of the fruits of the Spirit:

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).  On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.  These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.  But now you must get rid of all such things: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.  Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.  In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free, but Christ is all and in all! Colossians 3:5–11  NRSVUE

Galatians 5:25 concludes by challenging the Galatians to not only live by the Spirit but also to be guided by the Spirit.  In this instance, Paul’s usage of the word “live” (stoicheō) can be rendered “line up.”   Wright explains it this way: “A stoicheion is a ‘row’ or ‘lineup’: the Spirit is telling you how to get in line, the line in question being the line of life and to life. Your task is to see the line and stick to it” (p. 472).

As we reflect on love as the primary fruit of the Spirit, we can evaluate our thoughts and actions through that lens to determine whether our focus is inward or outward.

We are called to freedom in Christ, but the way that freedom is understood and expressed in community is quite different from what most people think.  Rather than self-indulgence, we’re challenged to develop appropriate self-love and love for others.  Our calling is to grow into the fullest expression of freedom so that we all may become whom God has made us to be.

Call to Action:  The book of Galatians focuses on church unity and loving our neighbor in the broader community as ourselves.  Prayerfully ask God what practical actions you might take this week to encourage church unity as well as love  within the community.

CLOSING SONG

CLOSING PRAYER

Small Group Discussion Questions