This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions. We're beginning a look at
Galatians chapter 5 today, day 1. We're going to focus on verse 1, and it is a
verse that's all about freedom, that one word.

And whether freedom makes you think of the 4th of July or a Mel Gibson cry at
the end of a movie, this kind of freedom we're going to talk about today is
greater than any of those freedoms. As great as those might be, Galatians is all
about the greatest freedom of them all. And Galatians chapter 5 verse 1 focuses
on that freedom.

Now as we begin to look at this chapter, I have to, just a personal confession,
I have to say to you that whenever I look at Galatians chapter 5, the first
thing I think of is Blue Jeans. And the reason for that is, when I was a brand
new believer in Jesus Christ, somebody challenged me to begin to memorize
chapters of the Bible. And so as a senior in high school, Galatians 5 was the
first chapter of the Bible that I decided to memorize.

I was able to memorize a few after that, but at least I got this one down. And I
memorized it while working at a men's clothing store. I memorized it while
folding blue jeans in a back room.

So whenever I, whenever I think it is for freedom that Christ sets you free,
therefore keeps standing firm, I can just see myself folding those blue jeans. I
say that just to remind you how powerful our memory is and how powerful it is
when you make the decision to set to your mind a verse of scripture. It's a very
powerful thing.

And Galatians chapter 5 is a powerful chapter. In many ways, the book of
Galatians is a three-storied book, like a three-storied building. And as we open
Galatians chapter 5, it's as if the elevator is about to open on the third
story.

The first floor of Galatians is history. The second is theology. And the third
is morality.

The first floor is Galatians chapter 1 and 2 primarily. And that's Paul focusing
on the history of what had happened with the Galatians and his relationship with
them, how God is at work in their lives. The second floor is theology, Paul
talking about the fact that it is by grace that we've been saved and giving all
those proofs that we've talked about the last couple of weeks.

And Paul has moved from events which have happened in Christ to the belief that
they hold in Christ to now, beginning in chapter 5, he's going to talk about the
practices that you and I are to live out in Christ. The history part is you have
been set free. The theology part is you've been set free through faith in Christ
alone.

The practice part is now live that life, live that life of freedom. And in
Galatians chapter 5 and 6, these next few weeks, we're going to see Paul discuss
three specific things about how to live that life, the life that God has for us.
He's going to talk about how to stand firm in freedom, how to walk by the Spirit
and how to live by the Spirit.

It's very simple, how to stand, how to walk, how to live. And in light of that,
let me just remind you of the picture that we ended with last week, the picture
of freedom. And where would you rather be?

Would you rather be trapped in a jail cell or out hang gliding? Hang gliding,
there's a little bit of nervousness there. And there's some people who would
choose the jail cell because it was more safe feeling to them, even though they
were imprisoned.

Freedom can sound scary to people, but remember, it's God's freedom. You're not
there alone. And it is my prayer these next couple of weeks that God's going to
help you to break through some bars, some barriers to freedom in your heart, in
your relationship, in your life.

It is my prayer for me and for you both, as we look at these verses, that God's
going to teach your soul, your heart, to fly in some new ways, open up some
opportunities of the soul that just haven't been there before as you discover or
rediscover this freedom that we have in Christ. My prayer is that God would
teach you to say yes to freedom in new ways these next couple of weeks. And in
light of that, let me read for you Galatians chapter five, verse one, the one
verse we're going to focus on today.

So Christ has really set us free. Now make sure that you stay free and don't get
tied up again in slavery to the law. This verse, Galatians five, one, in many
ways is the theme verse of the entire book of Galatians.

Galatians five uses the word freedom more than any other book of the Bible.
Galatians is all about freedom. First John is a book that's all about love and
it uses the word love again and again.

Philippians is a book that's all about joy and it uses the word joy again and
again. And Galatians is a book that's all about, it's all about the freedom that
you have in Christ. And if you were to sit down and think about, all right, I
want to be free in Christ.

I want to have freedom in Christ. If you were to sit down and try to make a list
of everything you have to do in order to stand firm in your freedom in Christ,
just the fact that you were making that list would show you missed the point
entirely. The freedom is that there is no such list.

It's not in what you do. It's not in what I do. It's in what Christ has done.

How do you stand firm in freedom? You stand firm in Christ. How do you stand
firm in freedom?

Let me share three words with you, trust, abide, and give. You trust, you abide,
and you give. That's how you stand firm in freedom.

You trust. To stand firm in the freedom you have in Christ is to trust a person,
not a truth, not a principle, not even a scripture is to trust a person, Jesus
Christ. In Luke chapter 4 verse 18, Jesus in one of his first sermons, his first
recorded sermon said that he came to proclaim freedom to the captives.

You trust the Jesus Christ who came into this world to say, "I came to proclaim
freedom. " That was his purpose. It is his purpose for you.

It's his purpose for you to experience that freedom, that freedom of soul, that
freedom of life, that freedom from having to work your way into God's
righteousness, into God's good graces. It is the freedom to no longer be there
because you trust that what Jesus did for you on that cross, dying for you,
giving his life for you, you trust that the love gift that he has given to you
and his life given for you, you trust that that establishes that relationship.
That's where freedom comes from.

You trust. And then you abide. If you really want the equation of freedom, you
might want to jot this down somewhere or maybe jot it down later if you're
driving right now.

John 8 verse 31 to 36 gives the equation that results in a lifestyle of freedom.
In those verses, Jesus says, "I want you to abide in my word. And if you abide
in my word, you'll know the truth.

And if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. " A lot of you recognize
that phrase. The truth will set you free.

And if you're free in Christ, you will be free indeed. In that equation, it
began not with the truth will set you free. That equation begins with abide.

And the word abide means you live in, you stay in. You abide in God's word in
Jesus Christ. To abide in something is a constant daily attitude.

It's not just something you hear about on Sunday or a verse that you read once a
day. Throughout the day, you recognize my life is in Christ, my joy is in
Christ, my freedom is in Christ. That's where you live.

That's how you stand firm in freedom. You trust, you abide, but you do one other
thing. You give.

In Matthew 10 verse 8, Jesus says, "Freely you have received and so freely give.
" If you try to hoard freedom, if you try to keep it to yourself, you're going
to find yourself locked up in a whole new jail cell, one of your own making,
where you're trying to keep grace just to yourself. No, you share it with other
people so that other people's lives can be changed as well.

One of the ways that you know you've come to a place of freedom in your life is
you feel more free to give to others. You don't have to hold on to it any longer
because you're not depending for your life on those material things. You're not
depending for your life on those old religious habits.

You're not depending for your life on anything that you do. Because you're free
in Christ, you are then free to give to others in Christ. How do you stand firm
in freedom?

You trust, you abide, and you give. I've said several times as we've been going
through Galatians that I wanted to fall back on some things that Martin Luther
wrote in his Commentary on Galatians because it changed his life so dramatically
and changed all of world history so dramatically. It brought about the
Reformation, what he discovered in the book of Galatians.

At this point, Luther wrote about this freedom that we have in Christ. Here's
his quote, "Our conscience must be trained to fall back on the freedom purchased
for us by Christ. " Our conscience has to be trained.

You see, most of us, myself included, we grew up falling back on ourselves. We
tend to automatically depend on what I can do, what we can do, in order to gain
a sense of security, in order to gain a sense of freedom in our lives. But
Luther wrote that you've got to train your conscience, you've got to train your
way of thinking, is what he's talking about there, every day of your life to
fall back not on yourself, but on the freedom that Jesus Christ has given us.

And how do you do that? You trust, you abide, you give. You see, Satan wants to
keep you captive.

He's evil and he wants to keep you captive. And before you became a believer in
Christ, he tells you that the way you experience freedom is by being caught up
in sin. Now that's real freedom, Satan says.

As if it were. I mean, you're getting drunk, you're coming home stoned, you're
miserable all weekend long, your life is falling apart, and Satan's telling you
all the time, "Oh, but you're free, you're doing whatever you want to do, and
what you want to do is ruining your life and everybody else's life and making
you miserable. " That's not freedom.

Satan's just lying and saying that it is. And you wake up one day and you
realize this is darkness, not light. This is slavery, not freedom.

And you come to Christ and you begin to experience real freedom. And then after
you come to Christ and begin to experience that freedom, Satan's going to come
back, the evil one, the liar, and he's going to then tell you that real freedom
is to go back into that jail cell of your own work, you doing what you can do.
It's religious things now.

You do the Bible reading, you do the going to church, you do the studying, you
do the acts of service, not as a response to the love of Christ, but in order to
earn the love of Christ. He'd love to get you into that jail cell. And all of a
sudden, you're experiencing what the Galatians were experiencing.

And so Paul wrote to him and said, "You're missing it. It was for freedom that
Christ set you free. So if you're not experiencing freedom, you're not
experiencing what Christ has done in your life.

" So we take a few minutes today to talk to Jesus. Let's talk to him about this
truth that he came to make real in our lives. Jesus, you told us.

You told us that it's the truth that sets us free and it's abiding in you and in
that truth that results in it setting us free, and that if we are free in you,
we are free in you. But Lord, you know us. You know how easy it is for us to
fall back on doing it our way, depending on ourselves.

Help me, help us to see places where we're doing that. And at those places,
Lord, I pray you'd bring a fresh new freedom into our lives. Help us to stop
trusting us.

Help us to start trusting you, abiding in you, and then giving to others. We ask
this, Jesus, in your name, amen. As we continue through Galatians 5, we're going
to look at what you say no to when you say yes to freedom.