If Jesus already paid for everything, does it matter how you live?
WATCH
For Freedom from May 31, 2026
“Jesus freed us for the benefit of others as well as for ourselves.”
Galatians 5:1-15 by Ryan Gagnon (@RyGagnon)
SUMMARY
The sermon teaches that true biblical freedom, as explained in Galatians, is found in Christ alone—his sacrifice frees believers from both sin and the old sacrificial system, so salvation is never “Jesus plus” anything. This freedom is not permission to live selfishly but a Spirit-empowered call to hopeful, loving service—standing firm in the gospel, rejecting legalism and cheap grace, confronting lies with love, and putting others first.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 Have you accepted the freedom Jesus is offering? Are you liberated?
💬 How has that freedom been evidenced by Spirit filled hope over the past week?
💬 What is Jesus' voice calling you to do?
💬 How are you confronting the lies of the enemy in the lives of those around you?
💬 How have you loved well by serving others this week?
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Freedom is a funny word. Like, it's something that we say a lot in our society. You know, we. We talk. We say freedom, we talk about our military, and we talk about some of the sacrifices that have happened.
And we have a celebration that's coming up with our country where we're going to celebrate the fact that we're free from Britain and 250 years. That's a big deal. We fought a civil war that had a component of slavery in it to fight for freedom for those that were under bondage. We just observed Memorial Day last week where we were observing those that had given their lives so that we could have this thing we call freedom. But I think sometimes it's a word that we just say a lot, but we don't necessarily unpack what it really means.
What is Biblical freedom? Like, I understand the idea of, like, I'm now no longer under tyranny. Right? Tyranny is kind of a big word. Right.
I can go back to the history books and think about what, you know, reading through, like the American Revolution or, you know, the Civil War. I can understand those things. But from a Biblical perspective, what is freedom? Because it's a word that is used over and over and over again in scripture.
We're going to talk today about what freedom looks like from a Biblical perspective, what those that have Biblical freedom should be doing and what that actually looks like in our lives. And then the weird desire to go back into bondage and how that plays itself out in the book of Galatians. We're continuing our series in Galatians. If you'll flip with, we have the large Bibles. That's gonna be on page 1128.
We've been studying this idea of being adopted into God's family and being transformed into something different, right? God, he makes us a new creation. And we've been discussing this for quite a few weeks now. But the passage that we're gonna be going over that. There's this thing when you're writing a sermon, you wanna understand the text and you wanna describe the text, but then you really wanna land in what we call application.
Okay, application. Because if we don't apply it, if we don't have something to do based on what God's word is directing us, then we're just in a class, and that's cool. But that's not what this worship gathering is designed to be. It's designed to be something that we come together, we pause, we celebrate Jesus. We learn more about what he's done, what he's Doing now and then what he promises he will do.
And then that propels us into our neighborhoods to invite them to meet and follow Jesus. So this passage is kind of like almost all application, so it's really exciting. I'm really pumped that I get to talk through this with you guys this morning. So let's do a quick recap. But before we do that, it's our custom.
We prayed the disciples prayer together, and we have the words up on the screen. And the idea behind this is, you know, Jesus said, this is how you are to pray. So we want to listen to Jesus, right? That's super weak. Y' all gonna have to go.
We want to listen to Jesus, right? Okay. All right. This is gonna be some fun this morning. We gotta get into this a little bit.
Okay. All right. So we're gonna pray these words out loud together. I would invite you to read from the screen if you need to. Let's pray those words now.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen. So before we get into the passage, we're gonna be in Galatians, chapter five. We're gonna cover the first 15 verses. But before we get into that, let's make sure that we kind of give a little bit of context about what we're studying. Okay, so this is a letter that Paul wrote to the churches in the area called Galatia.
Okay, so think modern day Turkey. Okay, so Paul had gone here, he had started up a bunch of churches, and then he was no longer there. So he's writing to these churches to deal with a really big deal, because he went and he preached the gospel. He preached Jesus. The guy who looked at him and said, you are persecuting me, Paul.
I'm changing your entire life. And now your life is gonna be about me. And now you're gonna go out and introduce people to me. And then he did that, and people came to know Christ, and he set up these churches, and then he leaves. And then this group comes in that says, hey, the Jesus part is the biggest deal.
Jesus is it. But you're also supposed to follow these other rules. You're supposed to follow these other Jewish rituals, because that's what God told us to do. So you, yes, Jesus, paid for all your sins. High five.
Whoo. Let's do it. But you also need to be circumcised. You also need to follow these additional rules. Now, Paul hears this, and Paul is attacking this issue, and he's striving to make sure people understand what the gospel is.
And the gospel is not Jesus plus anything. The gospel is Jesus plus nothing equals salvation. Jesus did the work. He looked upon us and saw us in our bustedness, came down from heaven, lived a sinless life with us, then allowed himself to be killed so that he could be the proper sacrifice, then rose from the dead, then walked around and was like, hey, y', all, I rose from the dead and then went to heaven and promises that he will return. That gospel is all that is required for salvation, is understanding that and following Him.
It's nothing else. Hear me. It's nothing else. And Paul was writing to a group of people like us who had heard that gospel, but then another group of people came in and were starting to pervert it. And we're causing division and strife within the group.
And this is a really big deal. We're talking about people's eternal salvation if they don't understand the gospel. Paul says to them at the beginning of this letter, if anyone preaches a gospel to you other than what I have preached to you, they are to be accursed. Some very direct language, and we're going to get to some of that today. Very direct from Paul.
But this is what he's dealing with, and this is what he's attacking in these verses here in Galatians. So what we're gonna learn today is that Jesus freed us for the benefit of others as well as ourselves. So Jesus paying for our sins and bringing us from death to life, would you say that's a benefit to you? It totally is. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. What if I told you that part of that benefit is how he's gonna benefit somebody else through your life?
Sometimes we get caught up in the us part, but he's actually saving us, not just for ourselves, but for those in which he calls us to introduce him to. Because our walk with him can be a benefit to other people, because I know that to be true. Because I don't think there's anyone in this room that is a follower of Jesus who didn't get introduced to him by probably another person. God uses us, and he saves us with that benefit in mind. So that's the big idea that we're going to be unpacking today.
But before we get into it, let's read verses 1 through 15 of Galatians, chapter 5.
For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ.
You who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Verse 7. You were running well.
Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view and that the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?
In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves, for you were called for 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.
Paul's pretty direct. Do you hear in the words the heart of someone who is fighting for the salvation of people? People that he can't stand in front of, people that he lived life with, People that we learned last week, cared for him in like. In malady, like he was. He was in pain and they cared for him.
These are people who he loves and he's fighting and doesn't understand why they are doing what they're doing. But let's kick it off here in verse 5, or verse 1 of chapter 5. For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. We're going to learn that the liberated stand firm on Christ's sacrifice.
Notice that Paul begins with what Christ did, and then he moves to a command and he says, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Does that sound a bit like a fortune cookie? Real talk, that sounds a bit like a fortune cookie, right? For freedom, Christ has set you free. What?
What does that even mean? Well, let's unpack it for a minute. Okay. So what Freedom is he talking about? There's actually two levels to this.
First, we have the issue of sin, which we've talked about a little bit, but let's just make sure we're on the same page. We, as humanity, were created to be in relationship with God. We had a right relationship with God. And then God said, these are the things that you are to do. And we went, nah, I'm good.
And we wanted to do our own thing. And we sinned. And in our sin, that created a barrier in that relationship between humanity and God. And it perverted everything, creation. Nothing is as it was supposed to be because of us, because of our sin.
So we had freedom in relationship to God, and we chose bondage in sin. We did that. We made those decisions. So Paul is talking first about the issue of sin, but it's not all he's talking about. He's also talking about the fact that in that sin, God promised a Savior.
God said he would send a savior born of a woman that would literally bring people from death to life. So he promised it from the beginning, but then what he did is he created this sacrificial system to deal with sin so animals would die. And in that sacrificial system, that would cover over our sins. Okay, so think about this for a second. Think about.
This is kind of a silly illustration, but remember, I work a lot with kids. Imagine somebody just dumped an entire jug of orange juice in the middle of your kitchen. It's happened, right? It's happened, right? Come on, come on.
The whole gallon. You just bought it. Okay, now the first system, sacrifice. Covers over. Covers over that.
So now the floor is not sticky, but it's not clean. It's not completely clean. Now, in that sacrificial system, we have a relationship with God, and it works, but it's not what God designed to be the total system, which would be called atonement. Say it with me. Atonement.
Again, super weak atonement. Okay, so in atonement at one, I'm now in relationship with God. That only comes through actually getting a mop and suds and cleaning up all of the orange juice. Christ's blood did that for you. Christ's blood, cleansed your sins, Cleansed my sins, cleansed the sins of the entire world forever.
There was not a covering over. There was actually cleansing. So what he's talking about is twofold. First the issue of sin, then the issue of the sacrificial system that they were under that needed to be repeated. So when he's saying for Freedom.
Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. Why are you going back to the old system? The old system was all to point us towards Christ's sacrifice, which would be coming. But now you want to go back into circumcision, which is not the point.
You're missing the Gospel. That's what Paul's arguing for here. And he's trying, he's pleading with them to stand firm. This remember that the standing firm is the opposite of what the Galatians had done. They had been introduced to the Gospel.
Paul wasn't there and they turned and they went with something else. Paul is practically yelling, like just pleading for them to understand because deliberated the free stand on Christ's sacrifice. Think about this. You're going to get up, you're going to go home, you're going to say or do something wrong. You're going to upset someone, you're going to sin.
And in that sin, Jesus has already paid for it. But we need to seek reconciliation with who we have wronged. But at the same time we need to acknowledge the fact that I even have the ability to live this life I'm living because of Christ's sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice empowers everything. Knowing that is true is the key to it all.
The liberated stand firm on Christ's sacrifice. But it doesn't end there. Let's look at verses two through six. Look. I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.
I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
So Paul begins here by saying, I, Paul, right? And all of the backstory of who Paul is. Okay, so Paul's saying, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision. Because remember, Paul is a leader in the Jewish community. Paul was a teacher.
Paul knew the word, Paul knew the sacrificial system. Paul understood. He's like, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. He's saying if you accept the circumcision, you reject Christ.
That's what he's saying. That's what we're talking about here. If you go this route, you're looking upon the sacrifice of Jesus and saying it wasn't enough. You are missing the entire point. Paul now moves to application for the choice they are making.
He shows that if they choose circumcision, that means they have to keep up the whole law. And remember what the law was designed to do was to point them to who? To Christ. So if they're. The law is pointing them to Christ.
And he's saying if you're going with the law, you are severed from Christ.
In verse 5, he points out the contradiction with the grace system. In the grace system, we, through spirit empowered faith, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. We meet Jesus and we're changed by Him. Now, does this kind of sound a little bit like a fortune cookie too? Little bit, Yeah, a little bit.
Okay, so read this together in verse five. For through the Spirit by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. So here's what he's saying here in Christ. So through the Spirit, okay? Holy Spirit, it's got to be spirit empowered.
All of this begins with the Holy Spirit. I come to know Christ. I now have the Holy Spirit dwelling within me. So through the Spirit by faith, faith is God Goggles, right? We've talked about this before.
It's seeing things the way that God says they are. It's I look at the world and I see the world the way that God says it is, not the way that everybody else does. The news does not dictate how I understand the culture that I'm in. The Savior that I serve does. So through the Spirit by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope righteousness.
I looked up the definition of hope. I just wanted to see how that lines up. Hope means an optimistic state of mind that motivates you to move toward a goal even when faced with uncertainty or challenges.
I'd say that fits that we, through Holy Spirit empowerment, see the world the way that God says it is. And because we see the world the way that God says it is, we are trusting that the Savior who died for us and promised that he would return would be our righteousness. As we just sang this morning, it's all there. And Paul is pointing out that in nowhere in there is the circumcision in the. In the Spirit.
We're talking about spiritual things here, but it doesn't end there. It continues and says, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Because the liberated are hopeful. If we are liberated, if we have the freedom of God, we are hopeful. And it's not hopeful that things are gonna work out great today.
It's hopeful in the fact that the righteousness that makes it to where I have a relationship with God is not my own. It's his. It's Jesus. Righteousness, but only faith working through love. The liberated are hopeful.
So think about your life. How hopeful you feeling?
This one kind of hit me hard.
I am a person who pays attention to the news.
Yeah, I heard a couple of. Yeah. And, you know, it's kind of hard to do sometimes to be hopeful when you're paying attention to the news. Do you guys know an asteroid came through yesterday? Anybody see that?
An asteroid came down and blew up over Boston, 40 miles up. And everybody's okay because it blew up 40 miles up. But all these people are just hanging out because everyone's got cameras on their houses now. And you can see this, by the way. And then all of a sudden, a major boom.
No one knows what it was. And then they're like, oh, turns out it was an asteroid.
Same week, Blue Origin has their shuttle that all they're doing is a test and that whole thing explodes. And that looks like a nuclear bomb when you watch the video of that. Is it hard to feel hopeful? Is it hard to feel hopeful? Sometimes.
But you know why? Because of where our eyes are pointed. And trust me, this is not cheap seats. I am the. This is me, okay?
If our eyes are pointed, if our we're spirit filled, seeing things the way that God says they are, we are hopeful. Not in this world because it's broken. We are hopeful in the God who promised to save it. That's what we're hopeful in. The liberated are a hopeful people.
Think about the people that God has called you to reach. Would they describe you as hopeful? Would they describe you as people who they see something different in? Because you have eternal assurance from the God who told the ocean to stop. This is hard.
It's really hard. But that's how we're called to live in freedom. We are liberated from sin. We are liberated from bondage. But we also, the liberated, follow Jesus voice.
Notice in verse seven, you were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Notice Paul now is transitioning to this running imagery, right? And he'll use this over and over and over again.
The idea is you're running a Race. And he's saying to them, guys, guys, you were doing it. You were doing it. People's lives were changing. God was moving.
And then a little leaven. Leavens the whole lump of a little bit of bad understanding of Scripture, a misunderstanding about what the actual gospel is will completely pervert the way you look upon your God. And that's what Paul is pointing out to them.
He continues and says, but if I brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I being persecuted in the case of the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.
So he means what he wrote. So when he says, I wish that they would emasculate themselves. This is operating on multiple levels, okay? One level is a separation being cut off. He wants them cut off from the church.
He does not want them to be a part of this. Right? This is not of God. Okay? But then also he is pointing out that people who seem obsessed with the cutting away of flesh to bring about righteousness to just cut away everything, it's there.
That's what he's. It's in the text. Okay? So Paul is being very direct and he is making sure that he confronts lies in love because the liberated do that. He won't allow these people to continue to be pushed aside and misunderstanding of the Gospel.
But he can do all of this because of verse 10. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty. Whoever he is, notice that his confidence is not in the Galatians. He's writing to the Galatians. He's caring for the Galatians.
He's confronting the lies that are hurting the Galatians. But his confidence isn't in the people he knows. It's in the God who saved him. That's where Paul's confidence is. How encouraging is that to us that the salvation of the people that God has called us to reach isn't up to us?
Is that worth an amen? Now, don't misunderstand. God has called us to invite our neighbors to meet and follow Jesus. We are not off the hook here. We are not.
He has called us to follow him. But the ownership of salvation is not ours, it's his. He is where Paul's confidence is. We can have confidence and this hope because of the God that we serve, not because we got it all figured out, because I don't know if you guys picked it up yet, but we really don't listen we're working at it, but we really don't.
But the liberated follow Jesus voice. The liberated confront lies in love. And Paul was doing that. But it doesn't end there. He continues in verses 13 through 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 that you are not consumed by one another.
So now he goes back to the idea of freedom. And he says, you were called to freedom, brothers. But also he knows with whom he is writing to because he's also one of us, that we would hear freedom. We're under grace. We're no longer under this repeated sacrificial system.
We don't have to do that anymore. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. It doesn't matter what I do because Jesus paid for all my sins, right? Wrong.
That's the point he's making. Because he's not only pulling them back from the idea of needing something on top of Jesus, but then realizing that when I pull them back from understanding that odds are we as people are going to go the other way too far, we're going to say, cool, it doesn't matter. Because Jesus love and his grace and his mercy is abounding and it's so big and it's paid for everything I so it doesn't matter what I do this afternoon. But it does.
And it does. Because the liberated serve by putting others first. Because notice what Paul does, he doesn't leave them there, doesn't leave them with the fact that they are going to probably push too far, lean into the idea of grace a little too much and think that their choices don't matter. He then directs them towards what they should be doing. And what they should be doing is how the entire law is put together in verse 14.
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself. When you're stuck in your own head thinking about everything you want, you can't do it. So the response to the idea of needing something extra than Jesus is Jesus is everything.
And then the response to Jesus everything is how can I not share that with someone?
It's not he's so good, doesn't matter what I do. That's an immature thought that is not wise, that is selfish, that is self focused. And God calls us out of that junk. He calls us into A life of serving one another. We talk about inviting our neighbors to meet and follow Jesus.
You know what that sounds a lot like? Treating your neighbor as yourself. Because we needed that message. We needed to know who God is.
We are under the grace system, but the grace system is still pointing us to share that with others. And if you want to do some study, that's why we read from Romans. Paul unpacks this much more extensively if you read through Romans. But the liberated serve by putting others first. So I got a couple questions for you.
Just initially. Are you liberated? Are you free? Because if you're liberated, if you're free, here are the characteristics of the liberated. The liberated stand on Christ's sacrifice.
Does that empower you throughout your life? That Christ's sacrifice is the reason I can do any of this? Are you hopeful that the same Christ who sacrificed himself is going to return and make all things new?
Do you follow Jesus voice?
Do you know what it sounds like? Do you hear the Holy Spirit call out to you in a way that you know what he has planned for your life today? This is what has to happen. I got it. God.
Or is that foreign to you? Or do you not know Jesus at all? If you don't, you need to know Him. Now.
Do you confront lies in love? The people that we live our lives with, when they see things that are a lie from the enemy in love, are we caring for them? Now, I'm not saying to walk around with a two by four that's, you know, that looks like a Bible and just start hitting people. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, is, are we confronting the lies of the enemy that are so persuasive in our culture?
And are we confronting them with love? Because a person who's free, who's liberated, who's running the race, does that? And then finally, are you serving by putting others first? How much of your life is really just about what you want to get done versus how you can actually lift someone else up and serve someone else. Because Jesus freed us for the benefit of ourselves as well as others.
It's not just for us. The gospel is a personal message, but it's a personal message that's meant to be shared with all persons. That's what he's called us to do. So a couple questions just to close you out. Have you accepted the freedom Jesus is offering?
Are you liberated on that? Real quick, if you don't know Jesus, do not leave this room without praying. Don't do it. Because his Gospel is true. And his gospel says that you are spiritually dead and you have no path to relationship with God apart from Him.
That's what he says. His words. Those words are true or they're not true. And I'm telling you personally, those words changed my life. And he offers that to you.
So if you don't know Jesus, talk to one of us. Pray, connect with us. Let us know how we can help you, how we can pray for you. Are you liberated? How has that freedom been evidenced by spirit filled hope over the past week?
Because I just shared with you my week. It was an asteroid and a rocket blowing up and I was losing my mind.
It was a tough week. What is Jesus voice calling you to do? Be specific. Think about that. How are you confronting the lies of the enemy and the lives of those around you?
And finally, how have you loved? Well, by serving others this week, not a month ago, this week, how has that happened over the past seven days?
Because if you are free, if you do have the freedom that God calls you to, you have a relationship with the God of the universe where you don't have to have a regular sacrifice to make the relationship right. The relationship's right.
Are you so hung up in that that maybe you're presuming on that grace a bit and not dealing with what he's called you to do? The challenge would be to live like a liberated person in freedom. Father, in heaven, you are everything, Lord.
Lord, we just, we can't, we can't pray that enough. This world will just shout and shout and shout and tear down.
And Lord, it's. We pray things like, it feels like the sky is falling, Lord, but yesterday the sky fell.
It's so hard. Lord, take our eyes from the current events, the current status of our relationships, the lostness of the world, and move our eyes to you, the freedom that you offer, the liberation that you offer. Lord, thank you for the reminder that you are that good.
Lord. If there's anybody in the sound of my voice that doesn't know you, Lord, just break them open, Lord, whatever it takes.
Help them to see that they cannot have a relationship with you on their own. It's impossible. They need you.
Their sin is a debt that will be paid by either them or you. You've offered that gift of grace, Lord.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
LINKS
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
