Living Gospel Dependence

The previous two posts contrasted two ways to live: slave or free. But how do you move from a life of slavery to a life of freedom in Jesus? We find out in Galatians 4:28-5:1.

1. Cast off your slavish tendencies. Galatians 4:30

Confess your sin...specifically your ability to depend on yourself and repent of it. Ask yourself, how am I depending on my own ability to find comfort, approval, power, or control apart from Jesus? Cling to Hebrews 12:1 and "lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely."

2. Remember who you are in Jesus. Galatians 4:28, 31

Because of your faith in Jesus, you are a fully loved, accepted, free child of God with all of the privileges that go along with it!

3. Stand firm in your freedom. Galatians 5:1

Because of your freedom, people will criticize you, tear you down, not know what to do with you, be angry with you, turn their backs on you, basically persecute you. In order to stand firm, it has got to be like a redwood forest. Redwoods are incredibly tall trees, but have pretty shallow roots. But their strength is that their root system interconnect. You must surround yourself in gospel community!

4. Cast of slavish tendencies. Galatians 5:1

Didn't I say this already? Yup, but Paul repeats it because as John Calvin has said, the human heart is a "factory of idols." Martin Luther's first of his 95 Theses stated the the entire life of a believer is one of repentance. Our natural bent is to make good things ultimate things, thus sinning by idolatry. We need to simply embrace the life of repentance.

May you truly live free.