Welcome back, everyone. I hope you all had a pleasant Thanksgiving. Last week we spoke about our decision to remain free or fall back into the slavery of this world. This week we will begin our dive into Paul's final topic as he begins to close out his letter to the Church of Galatia. In these last verses of Chapters 5 and 6, Paul starts to talk about freedom and our duty as Christians. These passages speak to Christians and touch on a common theme of "the meaning of the Holiday Season." Speaking of themes, I want to remind everyone that our theme of the book of Galatians is Truth. Truth is pure, complete, and without deviation. God is Truth. He is consistent, without perfection, and above all things. His Scripture, the Bible, is our written embodiment of Truth; as such, we study His scripture to change our lives to fit Truth. We cannot adjust to Truth to match our lives, beliefs, and world views.
Galatians 5:13-15 "13 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. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."
None of us can know freedom unless we are called to freedom. We discuss this multiple times throughout Galatians. We are all sinners, unable to rescue ourselves from the slavery of sin. Jesus Christ was sent to us by God the Father to save us from our sins (Luke 4:18) and set us free (John 3:16-17). The slavery Paul speaks of comes in many shapes and forms. Slavery of desire, worldly ambitions, sexual immorality, pain, suffering, selfishness, and most importantly, the slavery of eternal separation from our God (1 Timothy 1:10, Hebrews 2:14-15).
For we have been called out of slavery, we as Christians should not allow ourselves to fall back into those things which previously enslaved us before Christ rescued us. Nor should we use the excuse of our freedom, our escape from the punishment of sin, to live sinful (1 Peter 2:16). To be a Christian is to live for God and follow his teachings. We are called to live separated from this world, fleeing from all immorality and living righteously (Colossians 3:5, Galatians 5:16-26). We must be a beacon of light showing the world the new life Christ has given us, becoming a fixture for God's light to shine through us. We do this through studying God's word, praying and applying his teachings to our lives, running from the evils of this world (Colossians 3:7-8, Ephesians 5:8). When we live for God, study His Word, and devote our lives to him, we are choosing to wake up every day to live for God. To be a Christian and to be free from this world is not easy. Every day we must choose to be separated from this world and be renewed by Christ. Every day be made a new creature, transformed into the likeness of Christ (Romans 12:2). I won't go into this much more here as we will discuss it more in-depth as we finish the Book of Galatians. Still, we must have a basic understanding of our freedom to examine our lives in Christ.
After all of Paul's talk of freedom, he begins to talk about love. We are told to serve each other through love. Why does he say this? Christ tells us in Mark 12:28-32 to Love our God with our whole being and love each other. Our freedom, salvation, and relationship with God would not have been possible without love. God loved us first. He loved us when we were his enemies, living in open sinful rebellion against him, and He still chose to sacrifice his Son for us so that we might be free (Romans 5:8). Now we have discussed that God is Truth, and an aspect of that Truth is love. Love is perfect, love is constant, love is perfect, and therefore God is love (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). Love is God, Love comes from God, and for us to truly Love as God has shown, we must be free from our sins and this world. We must chase after God becoming more like him, and learn to Love as he is Love (1 John 4:7-9)
The greatest enemy to love is selfishness. We must be willing to put ourselves aside to care for the needs of one another. Jesus gave up everything for us. He gave up His power when he humbled himself to become a man. He gave up a life of peace when he fought back the temptations of this world daily. He gave up perfection when he took. Our sins upon himself and died upon the Cross. He showed us love, when he conquered death three days later and returned to us to save us. We will never be able to demonstrate the same level of Love that God has shown us, but we can emulate this Love through caring for our fellow man. God loved us, and out of this Love, he forgave us and continues to forgive us when we fail and sin (1 John 1:9), and as such, let us follow in this same example, forgiving those who sin against us (Ephesians 4:31-32).
When we choose to forgive someone, we selflessly deny the payment of retribution we are owed for the wrong done to us. We are turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:38). We are choosing to end the vicious cycle of pain and suffering done to each other. We are choosing to love the person who has hurt us and help those who would instead harm us. In doing this, we allow God to work, showing the world that we do not seek revenge or punishment. We offer the world that God forgives and pray that those who harm us might find God's forgiveness and know His Love as we do.
Forgiveness is probably the most challenging attribute of Love. It has taken me years to understand forgiveness. I have spent years fighting to apply forgiveness to all those around me. I serve in the military. My job is not to forgive those who come against our country but to be the punishing arm of our government. The world preaches against forgiveness. If someone does something wrong to another, the first course of action is often to slander their name on social media, take them to court, or seek out revenge in subtler ways. Forgiveness is hard, and I'm not saying any of us will ever be perfect at it until we leave this earth, but our responsibility as Christians is to work every day to learn to forgive.
This Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year, and every other Holiday that falls this time of year, I encourage you to make forgiveness part of it. Let this season be your first step to learning how to forgive and begin loving your fellow man. Let us put down our egos and judgments to love those around us. Let us leave the judgment to God and teach us how to love.
This Holiday season, who can you forgive that has harmed you?
Who have you denied love to?
How can you show love to someone this season?
What relationships do you have that need repair?
Who can you pray for?
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