November 23, 2025 | Christ or the Checklist

Christ or the Checklist | Galatians Part 14

Galatians 5:1–13

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.

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 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 to freedom, brothers. (ESV)

Jed Gillis shows how Paul’s message in Galatians 5:1–13 is a call to live in the freedom Christ has already purchased, rather than slipping back into the slavery of legalism. He explains that the false teachers in Galatia were persuading believers to tie their acceptance with God to circumcision and law-keeping, and Paul warns that any attempt to gain or protect God’s favor through performance makes Christ of no advantage and cuts us off from grace. Using the image of leaven, Jed explains how even a small dose of self-reliance spreads through the whole Christian life and turns joyful obedience into a heavy burden. In contrast, the Christian life is meant to be resting in God’s promise that righteousness and approval come through Christ alone, by the Spirit, through faith. From that rest, faith expresses itself through love, so that obedience feels like something we get to do rather than a checklist we must keep. Jed closes by urging listeners to examine how they relate to rules, success, and failure, and to stand firm in gospel freedom so that walking with God feels like freedom rather than slavery.

Transcript of Christ or the Checklist | Galatians Part 14

Does the Christian Life Feel More Like Slavery or Freedom?

Jed Gillis: Galatians chapter five. I want you to think about this question as we start this morning. Does the Christian life feel to you more like slavery or freedom?

Does it feel more like energy and excitement or bondage or burden? Does the Christian life feel more like the exhaustion of never measuring up or never being as good as the person next to you? Does it feel like something you have to do, or does it feel like something you get to do?

When we get to Galatians five, Paul is bringing home the point to his readers that Jesus didn't die on the cross, so that you would feel like the Christian life was a burden. He didn't die on the Christian on the cross so that you would feel like your walk with God was more like slavery than freedom. And in fact, as you trace the Book of Galatians, I would say when your heart feels like following Jesus is drudgery, difficult, slavery, a burden, you've probably lost sight of grace the way Paul describes it. Because Paul gets to chapter five and he really has a simple point. Avoid the slavery of legalism because life with God is supposed to be freedom.

Reading Galatians 5:1-13

Jed Gillis: Let's read chapter five, verse one.

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.

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 up. But 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.

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 Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free

Jed Gillis: Paul's not messing around. He's not playing. He really hasn't been the whole book. Remember he started off with with if somebody preaches a different gospel, let him be a cursed. Let him go to hell. That's literally what he's saying. He's, he's not been playing around. He's not been giving them, here's some little tidbits that might help your life. This is deadly serious to Paul.

And he starts this chapter with kind of a headline that he's been working to throughout the whole book, that it summarizes what he's about to say in this chapter, and then it summarizes what he is going to continue. His headline is for freedom Christ has set us free. Therefore stand firm in that freedom. Don't go back to slavery.

Now, it seems obvious. Of course, if Jesus set you free, it seems obvious that he would want you to experience freedom. Paul's not making any like incredibly difficult intellectual jumps. He's telling them, look, Jesus set you free. He doesn't want you to feel like it's bondage.

Jesus has set you free, and these false teachers are tempting you to pursue what you think is life with God in a way that feels like slavery, that feels like bondage. Your experience would not be one of freedom and joy, but one of burden.

In other words, Jesus set you free so that you get to live the Christian life, not so that you have to. For freedom Christ has set us free.

We know how this works. If we take it outside the spiritual realm, you just think about world history or American history. You don't generally stay free unless you stand in that freedom. We know this in in the history of our country, in the history of the world. We know freedom is something you, you keep. It takes work to keep freedom.

We could say that we say freedom costs something, and we're grateful for people who have paid that price with their lives for our earthly freedom, and we would say, stand firm in that freedom. Don't give up that freedom. That's what Paul's doing, but he's pointing in our spiritual lives to Christ and saying, Christ died to set you free. So stand in that freedom. If you want to experience freedom, you have to continue in it.

The Pull Away From Freedom

Jed Gillis: That's what he's telling the Galatians, because the freedom of of their soul and your soul and my soul, the freedom and the experience of that freedom is under assault. In this life there's always pressures trying to push your soul towards slavery. Trying to push your soul towards the experience of, well, I have to do this in order to measure up. I have to do this for God to approve of me. I have to do this to gain his favor. There's always these pressures.

In the case of the Galatians that were false teachers literally saying it to them, and we can find plenty of subtle ways false teachers now say the same things, but we can create the same voices in our own head. I don't measure up. God can't have favor towards me. I messed up in too significant of a way. God can't look on me with favor. All these voices that say might tolerate you, but he doesn't really have favor delight in you. These pressures are on our souls to push us so that our experience of the Christian life is not freedom and joy, but slavery, bondage.

And we'll talk more as we go, but the experience in our everyday lives. When you think I really should read the Bible or whatever other thing you wanna pick, but we'll just pick that one. I really should read the Bible.

Sometimes that feels like freedom and joy. I get to fellowship with the God of the universe because he speaks through his word and you're excited and you open it, and sometimes it feels like I have to.

Why? One reason I think is because we've forgotten the grace, the favor of the God who wrote this book and gave it to us. We don't come to him to read so that he says, well, they're trying hard. I guess I'll tolerate them a little longer. We come to it because he delights in his children. We remember his grace to us and it transforms living the Christian life from slavery and a burden to freedom and joy. That's what Paul is driving the Galatians to in this chapter.

You Were Running Well, Who Hindered You?

Jed Gillis: And we're gonna skip verse two through six for a minute. We'll come right back to it. But he starts with his headline and then he speaks directly to the Galatians experience and he says, you were running well. Notice how he paints this conflict going on in their souls and in their church. Maybe it mirrors some of what you feel you were running. Well, he looks at them and says, you were trusting God. I know it. I saw you trust in him. You were growing in grace. You were living out the freedom God's called you to. You were delighted to live with God.

He was like, you were running well, I know that was true. And he says, but who has hindered you? From obeying that truth. Who hindered you from continuing the race? The picture here is like if you're running a race and then somebody crowds in from the side and they kind of get in your way so that now you've gotta either run around them or you get tripped. That's what this word hindered includes.

If you think you've seen Ben Hur the chariot race, and the guy has the spikes on his chariot wheels and he swings it over to destroy the wheels of the other guy, he's trying to hinder his race. Or maybe a little newer, you could go with Iron Will, and the guy driving the dogs is whipping the other guy's dogs and trying to hinder him in his race.

That's the picture Paul's painting. He says, you were running, you were running a good race. These people who are teaching these things, they're hindering you. They're stopping you, they're they're cheating you. Who hindered you? Now he, it seems, he may not know exactly who it was. He knows these teachers were there, but it seems, because he says a couple times, he says, who hindered you? Um, he says, the one who is troubling you or bear the penalty, whoever he is, he's like, I don't know where this is coming from, but it's bad. Who hinder hindered you from running this race?

It could have been the false teachers directly, but it could also have been other Galatians. Friends at church.

You can imagine how this would work, right? The false teachers come in and they're all no the grace of God. And they hear these, these good sounding teachings and they start to think, well, maybe I do have to keep the mosaic law to really be favored. And maybe one of them thinks that at first, and this guy's fine, but this guy's like, well, maybe they're right. And they start talking.

Now you go, ultimately the false teacher is hindering them, but their friend may be hindering them, too. Paul's language is loose enough. It's anybody who gets in the way of you running well.

That's one reason that when you come to the Book of Galatians, maybe you sit and think, I got this message. I love it. I think Galatians is great. Maybe. Maybe you think that and that's good. But remember, it's not just about you. Like you don't hear truth from God's word only for you. In fact. You need to grow in your understanding of the grace of God. You need to deepen in your understanding so that you help others so that you don't hinder them running well.

You don't want to have a, a, an immature view of the grace of God and be the person he's talking about when he says who hindered you. The more you love the grace of God, the more you follow it personally, the more you can help others around you run that same race. The more we're reliant on ourselves, the more we might be hindering someone else running in grace.

Why Is Slavery Pursuasive to Us?

Jed Gillis: So Paul says, you were running well, who hindered you? Then? He says, this persuasion is not from him who calls you from God. He calls it a persuasion. I think it's an interesting word. It's an unusual word in the New Testament, but it has the same connotation we normally think of as persuasion here.

The idea is that it sounded good. They weren't hearing a false teaching that they said, oh, this sounds terrible. I think I'll try it. That's not what's going on. There's, there's persuasion. It's something that's flattering. We saw that in the last chapter. They make much of you so that you'll come and believe their teaching. There's flattery, there's a persuasion.

The, the teaching that these false teachers are bringing takes what sounds like grace that's too good to be true, and it tries to tame it. Say, God can't really have totally undeserved favor, so let's tame it and let's say he saves me by favor, but now I do all these works and that's how I gain more favor, right?

It makes it a little more controllable. Something that sounded too good to be true. Now you go, okay, I can sort of get that. That's what the false teachers are doing. They're offering a persuasion, something that sounds good, but Paul says this persuasion doesn't come from the one who called you with grace.

The Mindset of Performance Poisons Our Relationship with Christ

Jed Gillis: So then it's like, it's like Paul is, he's packing in all the different angles. He can talk to them about this. So next he hits them with a proverb, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. We get the picture right. If you take a little bit of yeast and you put it into a lump of dough and you mix it all together, well it's, it's all got yeast in it. It's all leavened, right? You don't put a little pinch of leaven in a section of dough and have only that part of the dough rise while the rest of it stays down. It doesn't work like that. A little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump.

He it. This was a proverb that they would say often, and he is reminding the Galatians. If you take just a little bit of this self-reliance that these false teachers are teaching, if you take a little bit of, I depend on myself to get favor from God, it poisons the whole thing.

If you depend on yourself, then you don't rest in grace. That's his point. You can't mix the two. A little bit of self-reliance says, I depend on me. My soul can't fully rest in the grace that comes through Jesus.

But I love how Paul works with this because it would be really easy for someone to hear what Paul's saying and say, okay, so, I got to the work I have to perform is that I have to make sure I don't depend on works. And then you're like, that's confusing. How do you do that? Right?

But notice Paul doesn't leave them there. He goes on in the next verse, verse 10, I have confidence in the Lord that you'll take no other view and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. He could ratchet up the guilt, right? He could say you, a little leaven leavens the hole lump. I know you think you're depending on grace, but actually all of you have this little slice of self-reliance in you somewhere and it's poisoned the whole thing and now you've gotta change it all. He could do that, except it would be not in keeping with his whole argument in the book.

So instead, what does he do? He gets here and he says, you must depend on the grace of God, not on yourself. And I have total confidence in the grace of God working in you. He doesn't layer on guilt and fear and insecurity to them. He points them back to the grace of God.

And apparently these false teachers actually were teaching something like this. They were saying, grace comes through the cross. You get saved now to really be secure in your favor with God or to grow in your favor, you've gotta keep the law. And then they would say, by the way, Paul really teaches circumcision anyway.

Say, how do we know that? Well, notice the way Paul talks in verse 11. He says, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I being persecuted? He's like, why are these people against me if I teach the same thing? See, they're trying to say, we teach the same thing Paul does. We're just helping you learn the rest of the steps, which would make sense because Paul did in fact have Timothy be circumcised. He was a Jew. So it's not that Paul said, no one can ever be circumcised.

So they try to talk the Galatians into it. That's what the false teachers must have been saying. And Paul's like, that doesn't even make any sense. The Jews are persecuting me. Why would they be persecuting me if I still teach the law just like they do?

Paul's Strong Language Against the False Teachers

Jed Gillis: And then he makes one of the strongest statements against false teachers that we have in the whole New Testament says, I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

What he's really doing is saying, I love the Galatians so much. I love God's people so much. About being too graphic. He's saying, if the false teachers are going to trouble you by insisting that circumcision is necessary for God's favor, then I wish the knife would slip and they would do more than circumcision. That's literally what he's saying. It's strong. In fact.

It's kind of like saying something like this. If false teachers are going to lure others from grace by insisting that you must give in order to earn God's favor, then I wish they would give everything away, starve themselves, and at least they wouldn't hurt anybody else.

That's the kind of language, like Paul cares about grace. He cares about grace being very carefully defended. He's not playing around with these false teachers. He's not like patting the false teaching on the back going. Well, they'll come around eventually. He says, this is going to harm these people in Galatia. It's gonna transform their experience of the Christian life from joy and freedom to slavery and bondage. Paul doesn't play around with that.

You see, careful Biblical doctrine isn't about telling you which standard of human performance to count on. Careful Biblical doctrine is about guarding the truth of grace in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the most loving thing Paul could do for them. The most unifying thing Paul could do for the Galatians is to strongly press them, to stand firm in the freedom of grace, or to urge them to carefully guard the doctrine of the grace of God. That's what Paul's doing as he gets to chapter five, that's the information he gives us about their situation.

You Can't Mix Christ and Your Checklist

Jed Gillis: Now, let's go back and look at verse two through six. Say, well, what's the, what's the big point, Paul? That's good Galatians. They have their false teachers. They had names they could put on it. We don't live in Galatia. What's Paul's big point that the transfers directly to us? Here's the point. You can't mix Christ and your checklist. When it comes to your relationship to God, you can't mix Christ and your checklist. Freedom and slavery don't mix. You can't combine them.

The Galatians really are free. That's what Paul's saying. You're free. For freedom, Christ has set you free. He's saying you really are free. But this doctrinal persuasion. This good sounding but not quite right. Teaching is threatening to change your experience of the Christian life into something that feels like slavery.

Potential Response One: My Performance is Still Tied to My Acceptance

Jed Gillis: Now, if you've been, if you've been with us as we've gone through the book of Galatians. Depending on the way you understand what Paul is saying about Grace, I'm gonna say you probably get one of two responses.

If you're a believer, you say, okay. I know it says, grace is how we're saved. And you think now maybe you've gotten this, but maybe you haven't. Maybe you think my performance is still tied to my acceptance somehow.

If that's the way you still think about it, when you get to Galatians five, what you're gonna hear is you're gonna hear Paul describing God's law and you'll think, I can't ever measure up. It's crushing.

And in the best version, you'll say, who could think I don't have to, Jesus did it. That's good.

That's not all Paul's saying though. Because Paul has reminded them throughout the book. If you tie your performance to your acceptance with God, then you will always feel like performance is oppressive and a burden. It'll always feel like slavery.

If you get to this point. Trying to keep God's commands always feels crushing. Can't do it. It's never good enough.

Potential Response Two: Freedom, Not Slavery

Jed Gillis: If you get to this point in Galatians and you followed what Paul is saying, and really the spirit takes the truth of grace and works that into our hearts. You don't experience God's commands as slavery. You experience them as your gracious king, and you go, I get to live like this. I get to read the word from my king. I get to talk to him. It's freedom.

That's why Paul has, that word has come up over and over and over through chapter three, four, and into five. He says the point, the Christian life is supposed to feel like freedom. Like joy. Not like a burden. Not like rules you have to keep, but like a, a king that you get to know. It's for freedom.

That's because Paul has been teaching your God's approval is not a mixture of his undeserved favor. Your efforts to measure up and earn his favor or manipulate his favor. It doesn't matter how you mix the two. You could say 50% undeserved favor and 50% earned favor.

No, you can't mix it that way, but you can't even mix it 99% undeserved favor, and 1% because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. So it will still feel oppressive. It'll still feel like a burden. It'll still feel like slavery.

You can't think, well, yes, he saved me by grace, and that gets me where he tolerates me. Now my performance gets me where he likes me, where he has favor.

Paul's saying, no. If you do that, you're mixing these two things and it actually ruins grace. That doesn't mean we're not tempted to mix them. I know that's true in my heart. I know the Galatians were tempted to mix them, but you cannot mix Christ and your checklist. It can't be mixed together.

Depend on the Law, Christ is of No Advantage to You

Jed Gillis: Notice how he talks about it in verse two, because he had strong language for the false teachers, but he's got really strong language for this teaching as well. Verse two, Paul says, if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

What does he mean by accept circumcision? He doesn't just merely mean that no one should be circumcised. Like I said earlier, he had Timothy circumcised. We know that. He didn't think Jews should stop having circumcision. That's not his point.

But the false teachers weren't merely saying Jews should be circumcised. Instead, they were teaching that circumcision was, was a necessary part of being related to God as part of his new covenant people. You want to have favor with God. You want to have his special favor. You have to do this. They pointed to circumcision and they pointed to, uh, dietary laws and things like that.

That's what the false teachers were teaching. And that makes sense. I mean, think about the way Gentile believers would've viewed the Jews. We have a whole old Testament of God showing special favor to people. He had made this covenant with to Abraham and his descendants, to Isaac and his descendants, to Jacob and his descendants. It makes sense.

The Gentiles would say through Jesus, do we really have all of that favor that God has demonstrated for thousands of years, or maybe we got part of it through Jesus and now circumcision and the law is necessary to really be part of God's covenant people or to secure our standing in such a way that we can experience all of that favor of God toward us.

We can understand why those questions would come up, and so Paul is responding directly to that. He says, if you accept circumcision like that, not merely if someone is circumcised, if you accept circumcision as a way to guarantee or gain God's favor when you didn't have it before, to manipulate it, to earn God's favor. And by the way, he's really using circumcision like the false teachers did as a representative of the rest of the law. That was the initiation ceremony. That's why he says in verse three, if you accept circumcision, you're obligated to keep the whole thing.

So we could state it a little more broadly and say, if you take any piece of human performance according to the Mosaic law or any other human standard of performance, because that's the best example, so if the Mosaic law can't do it, then nothing else can. If you accept any piece of performance as necessary for God's favor or capable of manipulating God's favor towards you, like he doesn't have favor, I do this and now it, it, it pulls his favor to me, then Jesus is worthless in your experience.

That's Paul's language.

In our modern world, we're, we're not really comfortable with stuff like that because when we try to correct somebody, we often want to say like, well, you've got some things that are really good, and now we want to redirect you a little bit and maybe you'll come to the right viewpoint over here. Paul's not playing that game.

Paul says, if you accept circumcision like that, Jesus is worthless to you. Wow. You can imagine how shocking that could be to the Galatians.

Say, well, why? Like, why? Why would Christ be of no advantage? Verse three. If you take one piece of a standard of performance like the law, you have to take all of it, which means God's favor can't be totally undeserved and yet earned by your performance. God's favor for you can't be totally free and manipulated by your performance. You cannot mix the two.

So he says in verse four, you are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. If you want to be approved or accepted by your performance, you're cutoff from Jesus.

And in case we wonder what exactly does he mean by that, he ties it into this theme of grace. He says, you're severed from Christ. If you wanna be justified or approved by your performance, you have fallen away from grace. Paul's point is you cannot mix Jesus and your checklist. And if you try, at best, you experience the Christian life as a burden. You're cut off from the empowerment of grace and you feel it as slavery.

Resting in the Promise of God

Jed Gillis: So what's the alternative? I mean, I hope you're here. I hope you say, I don't wanna be cut off from Jesus. I don't wanna be severed. I don't want Jesus to be worthless to me. Of no advantage. Paul, gimme, gimme the way to have the full advantage of my king. He does.

Verse five. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

God's grace, his undeserved favor to you, which by the way, ultimately his grace comes to you in, in his Spirit. The best favor God shows to you is he dwells with you. He sends his Spirit of peace and his Spirit of love and his Spirit of understanding. He sends his Spirit to live with you. So the God's grace, ultimately the gift of his Spirit comes as we have faith. That's what he says in verse five. For as our souls rest in the promise of God, we wait for the hope of righteousness.

If you're a believer in Jesus one day, you'll stand before God and you will have his absolute full approval. Be accepted. That's the hope of righteousness.

You say, but I mess up a lot, so how am I gonna know that? I get that. Well, if you depend on your performance, you're not going to know it. You're not going to rest in it, and you're not going to feel the freedom and joy that God wants you to have in it. But if you depend on the promise of God that he says, if you trust and rest in my promise, he counts our faith as righteousness.

If you want the full advantage of Christ, you trust in Him alone. And if you mix that with dependence on my own performance to earn God's favor, you lose all of the freedom of grace. Because of little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Our Approval is Not Connected to Our Performance

Jed Gillis: What Paul's doing in this verse, and the first part of the next one is he's separating, he's breaking the connection we feel between my actions and my approval. He gets to verse six.

He says, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. That's not what's important. That's not what matters. We all tend to feel like I must be approved based on what I do, and the truth of the gospel is that what you do is not connected to your approval before God. I don't mean it's connected a little bit. I mean it's not connected. That's Paul's point. Neither one matters. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, or we could say neither religious ritual nor lacking the religious ritual. Neither one counts for anything. Well counts in what sense? In the same sense that Abraham's faith was counted as righteousness.

Paul's saying, if you depend on circumcision or uncircumcision prayer or not prayer, church attendance, or not attending church, whatever it is, if you depend on that, God count this as my righteousness. It doesn't work. And at best you experience the Christian life as bondage, not freedom. Instead, he says, that's not what is important. These things cannot count for your righteousness.

I think one of the hardest things for me is I've gone through this book, the hardest things to keep wrestling and undoing in my mind. That is just so natural for us to think that my performance and my approval are connected.

But the gospel, the whole point of the gospel is that Jesus' performance and your approval are connected. The whole point is it transforms the way you look at your approval.

God is Still Pleased When We Fight Sin

Jed Gillis: Now, last week we, we distinguished, we said, look, God has favor and approval towards his children, but he's pleased when we fight sin, right? He's pleased when we do the right thing. Yes, absolutely there's a difference there. But if you're his child, his favor is on you in a way that your performance cannot touch. Your failures cannot make it worse, and your successes cannot make it better. They're not connected by the gospel.

And here's one practical reason I think this is a wonderful truth for us. If my performance influences God's favor towards me, well, let's just imagine that I'm tempted towards a specific sin 99 times, and I fail every single one of them. Maybe you feel like you've been there and the hundredth time you say, I don't want to follow that sin. I wanna love God and I wanna obey him. Well, if my performance turns his favor towards me, I'm sitting there thinking, well, it might take more than one time for God to really have favor on me, I've gotta outweigh like I did a lot of bad. I've gotta have some more good before his favor's really on me. He can't really be pleased with the one time when I messed up 99 times, can he?

But if you separate favor and God's pleasure in your actions and you say for all 99 times you failed, your father was not pleased with that. He's not joyful in that sin, but he has totally undeserved favor for you. Then what happens when you fight the sin the one time?

He delights in it.

We know this a little bit, a little bit as fallen humans with our children. If your child has messed up over and over and over again, and then they stop, they don't do the thing. You've seen them fall in this over and over, they don't do it. They do the right thing. Do you sit there with your arms crossed and go like, well, maybe I'll kind of start to have a little favor towards them.

Maybe if they keep doing it for a few weeks, then I'll really love them. No, you don't. You're like, yes, they got it! It. I'm excited. That's the way God relates to us.

To get there though, we have to realize there's a difference between God's pleasure in my actions and his attitude of favor towards me. And we have to realize that your performance and your approval are not connected. That's the truth of the gospel. So what does count? He says, faith, working through love is what counts.

Our Faith Energizes Our Love

Jed Gillis: Now we've gotta be really careful with this because we could, we could misunderstand Paul and miss the whole point of Galatians if we get here, if you come to that and say, Paul, you just brought performance right back into it, right?

Now I've gotta do loving things. And if I don't do loving things, then I guess I'm not approved. That's not Paul's point. He never says you're justified by love. He says, you're justified by grace through faith. And then he uses this phrase, faith, working through love. We could translate that word working. We could translate it this way. Faith, energizing love.

In other words. It's not that love is the justifying thing. It's that the rest in our souls, when we rest in the grace of God that brings energy so that it energizes our love. It transforms love from something you have to do to something you get to do.

It transforms it from, I have, I have to show love. This slavery is on me, to I'm energized. I'm excited. This is freedom. Let me love people. Where's the nearest person I can love? That's what he means.

When you rest in the promise of God's grace, this is Paul's pattern throughout the book, we are approved or justified by God's grace, his totally undeserved favor towards us. How? Through faith. What's that? Trust, it's rest in the promises of God. It's my soul saying, I don't depend on me. I'm resting in these promises. And when you have that kind of rest in your soul, in the grace of God, it energizes love and joy and peace and patience, and we'll get to all the fruits of the spirit later.

That's Paul's pattern through the book. That's how the Christian life starts. You rest in the grace of God through Jesus, and he counts that as righteousness. This is how the Christian life continues. You rest in the grace of God and it energizes you so that your spiritual life is freedom, not slavery.

You can't combine Christ and your checklist because the tiniest bit of self dependence will keep you from fully resting in the grace of God.

Does Your Walk With God Feel like Slavery or Freedom?

Jed Gillis: So I want to close this way. Does your walk with God or your obedience to God, does it feel like slavery or freedom? Does it feel like bondage or energy?

Paul tells the Galatians and us, stand firm in your freedom. Fight for your freedom. Remember that God's approval rests on his children, and that's not tied to your performance.

Probably you like me, you feel a mix. Say, my Christian life sometimes feels hard and drudgery and sometimes feels energy and excitement and I don't know, how do I sort through all these different things? I wanna give you two places to look and I say to look, I don't mean go sit with yourself and figure out all of the self-help things you can do, and then fix yourself and go to God. I mean, go to God and ask him to show you these things.

First, look at your desire for rules. Perhaps you think, I don't want rules. I don't want people to tell me what to do. That's just the response of a soul that feels burdened trying to measure up. You need to go back to Grace.

But maybe you don't think that. Maybe you think give me very specific rules. I would like the very specific rules that I know if I keep them. I'm good.

The more you depend on your performance, the more specific you want your rules. Think of a husband and wife who kind of fight back and forth, and I, you want the other person to approve of you, and you go back and forth and back and forth, and finally you go, just tell me what you want. Been there, right?

Look, is that the expression of a heart that just loves grace? No. It's the expression of one who says, I'm trying to depend on my performance to fix this. Just tell me the rules to keep. Sometimes we go to God the same way. Specific rules give us the illusion of control, but specific rules feel like slavery, not freedom.

The Old Testament gave us plenty of specific rules. How did Jesus summarize them? Love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. He said, don't worry about all the specific rules that felt like slavery. Instead, go live it out in a way that's energized by resting in grace.

So if you wanna sort through the mix of burden and freedom, say, okay, how do I feel about rules? Second place, look at your reactions to success and failure.

Remember, your performance is completely cut off from your approval. They don't connect to each other. That means a Christian experiencing spiritual success, the best spiritual week you've ever lived in your life. A Christian experiencing spiritual success should know that's only from God. It's not my abilities. It's God's grace. They should know it doesn't make God love you more than the previous week. It doesn't make God approve of you more. In fact, that spiritual success is a result of his love and grace for you, not something that earns it.

So when you spiritually succeed, do you expect better favor from God? I'd argue if your answer to that is yes, that you're looking to your performance in a way that's tied to God's favor. That's not what Paul's teaching.

So look at your reactions to success and failure when you succeed. It's only from God. It doesn't make God love me more. My father has pleasure in those things that are good, and I wanna share his joy. That's freedom.

When you experience failure, the worst spiritual week you've ever had. A Christian who rests in grace knows it doesn't make God love you any less. It doesn't make God approve of you any less. The Christian who rests in Grace knows that God is always working for their good because they love him, even in your failures.

That's hard for us 'cause we really like to tie performance to approval, but that's always gonna feel like a burden, always gonna feel miserable and the cross breaks it. Your approval rests on his performance. So the Christian who's experienced failure, confesses and returns to grace.

When you fail. When you fail, I mean, in big ways. I mean in the ones you're like embarrassed about when you really fail, do you run to Jesus or do you want to fix yourself first? If you want to fix yourself first, you're tying your performance to your approval instead of resting in the grace of God.

So brothers and sisters, if you combine Jesus and your checklist, Christian life will feel like a burden. It'll feel like something you have to do that is difficult and drudgery, and if you rest in the grace of God. For freedom, Christ has set you free. So that rest in his grace energizes love flowing through you and obedience to our king.

I wanna invite you just to close your eyes. Take a moment to talk to God to respond to the truth of his word and join me and asking him to reveal any area of our lives where we are trusting in ourselves and not his grace. And then I'll close in prayer.