Year C, Proper 8 (Gal. 5:1, 13-25)
Messiah Episcopal, Myrtle Beach
June 29, 2025
Video starts at 22:15
“For Freedom, Christ has set us free.” In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good Morning. I am excited to be back here at Messiah. I don’t believe I have darkened this place on a Sunday since last October. I am also excited because Fr. John has allowed me to preach today when our lesson is on Galatians. I love the book of Galatians. It is my favorite book in all of the Scriptures. Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians is one of the five most spiritually influential books I have ever read. And so, with a hat tip to Dr. Luther, let’s begin our epistle lesson.
Galatians is the pure distillation of the Gospel of God’s Unmerited, Unconditional, and Irresistible Grace. You see, in the Gospel of Grace, Christ has set us free – Free from the Law and Free to Love Others.
Throughout Paul’s ministry, the Apostle repeatedly faced a key question: if Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, and Paul is preaching about the Jewish God, then must Gentile converts to Paul’s very Jewish religion obey the Jewish Law? The Jewish Law includes the 613 Commandments found in the Torah—the first five books of the Bible—and their interpretations. Most of these commandments were given by God to Moses, including the Ten Commandments that God wrote with his own finger on Mount Sinai. So, the question is whether we who follow Jesus must obey the Law in order to be reconciled to God, to be loved by God, and to have a saving relationship with God? Paul answers this question with an emphatic “No!” The followers of Jesus are not bound by the Law. We are not subject to the Scriptural commandments, including the Ten Commandments. And we are not bound by any moral or ethical code. Christ has set us free from the yoke of slavery to the Law.
Having attended too many church camps growing up, I was taught that we are saved by Grace. But. (And there was always a “but”) But. I also had to obey certain moral rules. I was told that Christians are still subject to the moral rules of the Law. I was taught that if I broke those rules, I risked losing my salvation, invited God’s wrath, and jeopardized his love for me. Paul’s opponents in Galicia taught the same thing.
You see, the Law (or really any moral code) is pernicious and insidious. What the Law tells us is that if we just do certain things or avoid doing certain things, God will then love us and grant us his salvation. What the Law tells us is that we can put God in our debt. That we can gain control over God, his Grace, and his blessings. All we must do is obey, and our karmic God will respond accordingly.
What the Law teaches us, is that if we are obedient, then we are more righteous and deserving of God’s love than those who are not. Trust me, I have believed this. This is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. How can I love my neighbor as myself if I consider myself morally superior to them? How can I think of others as better than myself, as Paul writes in Philippians 2, if I believe I am better than they are? This is the false confidence, false self-justification, and false self-righteousness that the Law promotes. I can’t speak for you, but I can tell you that I do love the Law sometimes because I want God to be in my debt, and I want to think of myself as better than others.
But here is the problem. The Law can put God in our debt and give us a false sense of self-righteousness, but what happens when we fall? What happens when we transgress the very moral code that defines who we are? The Law says don’t get drunk, but what happens when we fall into addiction? The Law sets forth strict sexual morals, but what happens when we find ourselves named in a divorce complaint or realize that our sexuality is outside the norm? The Law tells us not to lie, cheat, steal, or covet. But many times a day, do we fall short of the Law’s expectations?
If we are truly honest with ourselves, we know that we always fall short of perfect obedience. Being honest means recognizing that we can never fully meet God’s Law or any moral code we follow. Because of this, relying on our obedience to the Law or our moral code means our eternal salvation is never guaranteed, God’s wrath is always a possibility, and his love is contingent. As Martin Luther writes in his commentary on Galatians, the Law stands to accuse us of our shortcomings and to condemn us to hell now and in the future.
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But when Paul writes “For Freedom, Christ has set us free,” he is telling us that we have been set free from the Law. We are freed from the yoke of slavery to the Law. We have been set free from the accusations of the Law, from the doubts and anxieties it causes, and set free from its condemnations. I so wish that this was the message my church camps preached to me so many years ago.
Martin Luther, however, goes on to write, that in the Resurrection, Christ has made us righteous and is victorious over the Law, death, and hell. Therefore, when these enemies of ours accuse us, they cannot drive us to despair or condemn us. For we are not under the Law. We are not subject to any penalties for its transgression. We are not subject to its condemnation. Rather, we are under God’s unconditional, unmerited, and irresistible Grace that can never be taken away from us. We are reconciled and made at one with the Father because of Christ’s work in setting us free.
Christ’s victory is not contingent on anything you do. Rather, the unconditional Grace and love of the Almighty and his reconciliation of all sinners to himself in Jesus Christ, simply is a fact, and not merely a contingent possibility. There is nothing you can do to earn your salvation, and there is nothing you can do to lose it, because Christ Jesus has reconciled us and set us free. He has set us free from the blessings and curses under the Law. He has set us free from any accusations and condemnations that the Law or any moral code may bring. No conditions. No asterisks. No fine print. No provisos. No exceptions.
Therefore, Paul writes, “Stand firm in your freedom.” Never let anyone make you doubt God’s Grace towards you. Never let anyone make you question your salvation. And never let anyone make you doubt God’s Love, even if that person is the one in the mirror. Stand firm in your freedom, and do not ever again submit to the yoke of slavery under the Law.
Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ has set us free. This is the Gospel of Grace upon which we Stand Firm.
Now, the freedom that Christ gives us is not merely freedom from anxiety, wrath, and condemnation under the Law, but the freedom to genuinely love our neighbors as ourselves. This is Paul’s second point in our reading. Christ has set us free, not just to assure us of our reconciliation with the Almighty, but for a purpose. And that purpose is to be like him. We have been set free to become slaves to one another in love.
Think about how freedom from the Law allows us to Love Others.
If God’s love is contingent. If God’s love is dependent on our obedience to a particular moral code. Then we ourselves and our church communities must uphold these legal and moral requirements – because our very salvation depends on it. If God’s Grace requires obedience to the Law, then the church must dedicate itself to these moral rules regardless of how it affects our ability to love others.
You see, the Law requires walls to exclude those who do not meet its requirements. In Galatia, these moral walls concerned the requirements of circumcision, Sabbath observance, and dietary restrictions. Those who ate the wrong foods were being excluded from the congregation. Today, on Pride Sunday, we are made well aware of the walls that our church communities continue to build. Walls that keep out those who look differently, think differently, love differently, or vote differently than we do. As Paul writes, the Law gives us permission to “bite and devour and consume one another.” It gives us permission to look at others and say, “You don’t measure up and are not welcome here.”
But, God’s Grace is Unconditional, and Christ has given us the victory over the Law, so that the salvation of each one of us is assured. God has not excluded anyone from his Grace. He has not excluded anyone who has not met whatever moral and legal requirements we might imagine. And because God’s Grace and God’s love are extended to everyone, regardless of whether they obey the Law or whatever moral code we think is relevant, then we, too, now have the freedom to extend our Grace and our love to everyone as well. We can no longer look at anyone and say, “You don’t belong.”
In this freedom, we encounter the great paradox of our faith. We have been set free by the work of Jesus Christ and are not to return to slavery under the moral law. Yet, in our freedom, we are called to become slaves – through love – to all. We are free from the self-justification and self-righteousness that the Law provides so that we may be enslaved to being patient and kind, and neither envious nor boastful nor arrogant nor rude towards others. We are free from thinking ourselves better than others, but enslaved to thinking others better than ourselves. We are free to recognize the good and the divine within others and to call that out rather than condemn them for falling short of our moral code. We are free, as Paul writes in Romans 14, from judging others and from despising others. In short, we are set free to love.
To emphasize this point, St. Paul concludes our reading today with two lists: the Works of the Flesh and the Fruit of the Spirit. First, understand that these two lists do not provide us with new laws or new requirements to earn God’s Grace or our salvation. Rather, Paul gives us a set of criteria by which to organize our lives.
As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:23 – “‘All things are permitted,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are permitted,’ but not all things build up.” We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves and to build up the body of Christ. Paul gives us these guidelines to do so.
What we should observe is that the first list is inwardly focused, while the second list is outwardly focused. The Works of the Flesh are all about me. They revolve around me satisfying my desires. They involve me using others for my own gratification and forcing others into my service. Licentiousness, anger, dissension, envy, and drunkenness are all about self-love, a love that has turned inward.
But the Fruit of the Spirit is all about others. The Fruit revolves around our interactions with others. Peace, Patience, Gentleness, and Self-control are all grounded in loving others, a love that has turned outward. The Fruit of the Spirit is about loving others as Christ has loved us. It is about being a slave to others, just as Christ became a slave to all.
Christ has set us free from the condemnation of the law so that we can now genuinely love our neighbor as ourselves. We are fallen human beings and we will fail in the freedom given to us, but Christ is victorious and God’s Grace will never fail us.
In a few minutes, Father John will stand behind this table and celebrate the Eucharist or the Great Thanksgiving. Christ has given us the Eucharist as a reminder and a celebration of his victory over all condemnation. A victory that has secured for us the full reconciliation between each of us and the Father. Therefore, as you come forward this morning to receive the bread and wine, allow these elements to serve as a visible and physical reminder of God’s Unconditional, Unmerited, and Irresistible Grace by which you have been freed from the obedience to and condemnation under the Law. Receive these elements as a reminder that Christ has given you the freedom to go out and love and serve others as Christ has loved and served us.
AMEN
Sources:
- Martin Luther, Galatians (1:1, 5:1, 13-25)
- Martin Luther, Christian Liberty
- Preaching the Gospel Rightly Under the Conditions of Tyranny, A Discussion of Karl Barth’s Emergency Homiletic. Eclectic Orthodoxy 6/24/2025
- Tullian Tchividjian, Facebook post, of 6/18/2025