"Sold!" The auctioneer was brisk and businesslike, and the word he spoke so matter-of-factly carried clearly across the crowd gathered before the steps of old Wetherburn's Tavern. The place - Williamsburg, Virginia. The year - 1800. What was sold? Another human being - into slavery! Can we imagine human beings being sold as property like farm machinery or cattle? Can you imagine hearing the word "sold" and realizing that you now belonged to another human being for life?

On January 1, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared free all slaves residing in the territory in rebellion against the federal government of the United States. This Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people. It did not apply to slaves on border states fighting on the Union side, nor did it affect slaves in southern areas already under Union control. That proclamation did not actually free many slaves. But there was one declaration that did! Many years before the United States or Canada even existed, Jesus Christ, from the cross He was dying on, declared, "It is finished!" All people are now free from their slavery to sin! Because of the payment Jesus made by dying on the cross and rising again, the almighty God declared all people free from the guilt of their sins!

Friends, in our text today, God encourages us to STAND FIRM IN YOUR FREEDOM! Because, first of all, You Have Been Freed From Sin! That's right, when you were born, the auctioneer cried out, "Sold!" You were sold into slavery - to sin, death, and the devil. You belonged to sin and death. They owned you and you served them. And you had nothing to look forward to. But now the Holy Spirit shares some good news with you: You are free! Before, you were mastered by sin, because you couldn't be perfect. Jesus came and was perfect for you. Before, you were mastered by the guilt of your sins. Jesus came and shed his blood on the cross to take the penalty for those sins of yours away. So now, you have Jesus' message of good news! It is finished! You are no longer a slave! You are free! Free from your sins and the dead-end they bring! So stand firm in your freedom! I bet you no slave in America ever wanted to go back to being a slave. So, since the slavery to sin is even worse, why would we ever want to go back to being a slave to sin and the law? You have been freed from sin as a gift of a loving God! Remain in that freedom!

That should be easy, right? Wrong. A man named John had grown up in a devout Roman Catholic family. He had diligently practiced the rites of the Catholic church that he believed would bring him salvation. But he was greatly troubled in his conscience, even though he led a respectable life. He knew in his heart that he had violated God's law many times. In his search for peace, John came into contact with Mormon people. They were kind and friendly and seemed to be at peace with themselves because of their religion. He thought that the Mormon religion had the answers he was looking for, and he became a Mormon. A few months later, he went to Las Vegas on his first Mormon mission. He had been taught that this was one of the steps to godhood. He went on a second mission, and later he was married in the Mormon temple. John became involved in some of the highest rituals in the Salt Lake City temple. He was baptized many times for those already dead, believing that he was helping them up the ladder toward godhood. Still, John had a troubled conscience! He had a gnawing feeling that he was not earning God's favor; he just was not doing enough! He studied Mormon doctrine diligently, but still found no peace. Why not?

Without realizing it, he was enslaved by the law, both God's and man's! He had given up the freedom Jesus won for him! He endured what happened to Dr. Martin Luther 500 years before. Luther had spent the first 30 years of his life enslaved by the law and his sin. He had been taught to obey the law of God and the laws of the church in order to get right with God. When he was in a monastery, he did everything that was demanded of him and more. Later he became a priest and a professor at the University of Wittenberg. Even though he led an exemplary life, his sins still bothered him! Both John the Mormon and Luther had experienced what St. Paul, the writer of our text, experienced: If someone is trying to find peace with God by obeying the law, he becomes a slave of the law, and of his sin. Paul knew what it meant to become a slave of the law. He had been schooled in OT law and Jewish traditions by some of the finest teachers. He was convinced that by his daily duties and acts of obedience, he was earning God's favor and securing his place in heaven. He was a slave to the law!

Until the Holy Spirit convinced him in his heart that he was now free! And that is why Paul dedicated his life to sharing that "emancipation proclamation" with us! Stand firm in your freedom! You have been freed! Not because you have earned it by the life you have lived. Not because you deserve it. You Have Been Freed Through Faith! Freedom is yours simply because God loves you and had mercy on you! Paul says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Christians in Galatia were doing. There was a regulation that all OT believers had to follow - all the males had to be circumcised, and this physical act would mark them as a child of God. Once Jesus came, this no longer had to be followed. However, some of the weaker Christians were trying to insist that this custom was still necessary as something a NT believer had to do in order to be a Christian and be saved. In other words, they were trying to become slaves to the law again right after they had been freed! They were now burdened with the prospect of trying to obey a law to get to heaven! They wanted their claim as God's children to rest on something they did physically, rather than what Jesus had done for them. To this, Paul said: "Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all." In other words, if we want to rely on what we do to be saved, then that takes away Christ's sacrifice for us. We either go to God trusting in Christ or in ourselves. If we go trusting in ourselves, we can't go also trusting in Christ. Then his declaration means nothing for us!

Here's the second problem. Paul continued, "Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law." In other words, if we think that we even have to fulfill one law to be saved, then we are obligated to keep God's WHOLE law perfectly! We are either getting to heaven by what we do or by what Jesus has done - it can't be a combination of both. Since none of us are being pressured to be circumcised for salvation today, let's put it into terms that apply to our lives. IF you think you will earn God's favor because you have kept out of trouble with the police, or because you have raised obedient children, or because you have loved your spouse very sacrificially, or because you have volunteered a good chunk of your time to community organizations, THEN to earn God's favor you would also have to never speed on the highway, never have an unclean thought, never lose your temper, be a perfect manager of the blessings God has given you in your life, always serve others lovingly, and put the interests of others before your own! If you want your record to count for something, then you have to look at your WHOLE record! If you want God to reward you for one thing you do well, then you would have to allow Him to judge you on everything you do. And isn't it true that none of us would really want that?! Stand firm in your freedom - believe that Christ did it all for you!

The third problem is that if you want to be saved by what you do, then that deprives you of God's grace and puts you on your own "merit plan." Paul continues in our text, "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace." Suppose you were trying to cross from one cliff to another which is 100 feet away. It is 5000 feet down to the rocks below. However, you have a one-inch thick rope which is capable of holding several tons. Only, there's one problem: your rope is 50 feet long. But someone tells you, "Don't worry! I have 50 feet of thread! We can tie my thread to your rope, attach it to each side of the cliff, and then you can go across!" You tell him to get lost! But he replies, "What's the matter? Don't you trust the rope?" "Yes," you say, "I trust the rope but I don't trust the thread!" You can even change the story. Suppose you had 90 feet of rope and only 10 feet of thread. You are still not comfortable. Make it 99 feet of rope and 1 foot of thread! One inch of thread! It doesn't make it any better, does it? You see, if you have even one inch of thread, you will be just as dead on the rocks below as if you tried to cross on 100 feet of thread. The rope represents what Christ has done for us and the thread represents what we have done. Don't trust in that! Trust in Christ alone! As Charles Spurgeon put it, "If we have to put one stitch into the garment of our salvation, we shall ruin the whole thing."

So friends, stand firm in your freedom! Christ has given you freedom! Why would you give that up by relying on yourselves instead of Jesus? Martin Luther once said, "The most damnable and pernicious heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man was the idea that somehow he could make himself good enough to deserve to live with an all-holy God." Verse 5 in our text tells us: "But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope." God's righteousness, his forgiveness, and heaven with it, come to us because of what Jesus did - and we don't receive those blessings by anything we do, but through faith that they already belong to us. That is freedom, friends! You have been freed through faith!

But that does not mean we have no responsibility now. It doesn't mean we can just goof around because God has done everything for us! We have been freed for a reason! You Have Been Freed to Serve! Faith, without works, saves. But faith is never without works! A living faith in your heart will motivate, inspire, and lead you to do amazing things for God and your neighbors. It will lead you to do these things willingly and gladly! You are free to serve God now instead of serving the devil, the sinful world, or your own sinful flesh. And serving this master is a much more wonderful existence! Our text concludes by saying, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." Our faith that has received God's salvation as a gift now can't help but express itself by serving, loving, obeying, and thanking God.

And being this kind of slave is the opposite of being a slave to the law. A young Navajo man who became a Christian once gave a very good definition of what this means when he was asked to explain the difference between the law and grace. He answered by recounting the long train ride he just took from Arizona to Oakland, California. On the middle of the trip, he had a stopover at the most beautiful railroad station and hotel he had ever seen. While he was there, he noticed a sign near the beautiful carpet on one end that said, "Do not spit here." But he observed, "I looked at that sign and then looked down at the ground and saw many had spitted there, and before I think what I am doing I have spitted myself! Isn't that strange when the sign say, 'Do not spit here"? Then he related that when he got to Oakland, he stayed at a woman's home, which was the nicest home he had ever seen. As he was admiring the beautiful furniture, pictures, and carpets, he went all over the place looking for a sign that said, "Do not spit here." He couldn't find one, and thought, "What a pity when this is such a beautiful home to have people spitting all over it - too bad they don't put up a sign!" But when he closely inspected the entire carpet, he couldn't find any evidence that anyone had ever spit on it! "What a strange thing," he said, "that where the sign says, 'Do not spit,' a lot of people spitted. Where there was no sign at all, in that beautiful home, nobody spitted. Now I understand! The sign is law, but inside the home it is grace. They love their beautiful home, and they want to keep it clean. They do not need a sign to tell them so. I think that explains the law and grace business."

Friends, as believers, we have been freed from sin, and in fact are now owned by God. We are now free to serve God. Yet, we still have a choice to serve either sin or God. In light of the realities of slavery and how awful it is, it's worth considering: Which master are you serving? And which one is likely to treat you better? Let the amazing free gift of God's love help you answer that question! He has set you free! With his help, stand firm in your freedom! Amen.

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