Free To Love and Serve - November 15

Read Galatians 5:11-15 

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

Reflect 

Do you tend to err towards legalism or towards license? Why do you think that is the case? 

One of the trademarks of fallen humanity is that we are completely full of ourselves. We are obsessed with our ability to achieve so it is an assault to our sensibilities to be told that we can’t do anything to make ourselves righteous in God’s sight. But we are also obsessed with our individuality and our personal rights. We want to be free to completely express ourselves and fulfill our desires. These are the two sinful extremes that we tend to gravitate towards—legalism and license.  

But in today’s passage, Paul doesn’t say that we were called to legalism or license but to freedom. He clarifies that freedom in Christ isn’t the freedom to do whatever we want, that would be to use our freedom “as an opportunity for the flesh.” Instead, we are called to use our freedom to lovingly serve one another.  

We don’t know for sure but it seems as if the false teachers in Galatia (the Judaizers) were spreading lies that even Paul preached that circumcision was necessary for salvation. Paul called them on the absurdity of those claims. We know from Paul’s past that before his conversion, he was extremely zealous for Jewish laws and religious rituals. But once he came to Christ, he realized that he was only saved by God’s grace. If he was still preaching the need for circumcision, then he’d be preaching the same message the Judaizers were preaching. So why would they persecute him? It was because his Gospel of grace ran counter to their gospel of works that they persecuted him.  

The cross of Jesus Christ was offensive to many Jews because it tore down everything they knew and understood about how to be made right with God. Their faith had been in the law and their obedience to it. But now, they were just supposed to accept Christ’s work on the cross? It rendered their system of religion null and void. If Paul would have continued preaching the necessity of circumcision, the cross wouldn’t be nearly as offensive to the Jews because it would have maintained the Old Covenant practices that they clung to. 

Now, I have to clarify that Paul was not advocating for the Judaizers to actually mutilate themselves when he said that he wished these false teachers would emasculate themselves. However, it was an established pagan practice of zealous cult followers in that time. Paul was likely saying something to the effect of: “If these people think circumcision makes them righteous before God, why don’t they go for super righteousness and completely castrate themselves?”  

Paul emphasized that we weren’t called to legalism, we were called to freedom in Christ. But that freedom doesn’t mean that we are free to do whatever we want. Freedom in Christ is not a license to sin nor is it a “get out of hell free” card. In Christ, we are free from sin, not free to sin! In Christ, we are new creations filled with the Holy Spirit, free and empowered to overcome the sin that used to overcome us. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that if everyone did whatever we wanted, it would be chaos! In looking only to our own interests, we’d destroy each other. Instead, we are called to exercise our freedom in Christ to love and serve one another. Friends, we’ve been called to freedom! So let’s not live to the law or live to sin but live free to lovingly serve. 

Respond  

Jesus, thank You for the immense gift of freedom that I have in You. Help me to truly understand how to walk in Your freedom. Please protect me from erring either toward legalism or license and instead help me use my freedom to lovingly serve the people You’ve placed in my path. Amen. 

Reveal  

Look for one small way this week to use your freedom to serve someone who doesn’t expect it. Maybe it’s quietly paying for a coworker’s lunch, taking time to really listen to a neighbor who needs to vent, or doing a small task someone else dislikes without announcing it. The goal isn’t to get noticed—it’s to let love quietly interrupt someone’s day. When you choose to serve freely, not because you have to but because you want to, you remind others that love is most powerful when it costs us something small but means something big to them.