By Jamin Roller
Last May, I celebrated 10 years of ministry at the church where I pastor. As a gift, our elders allowed me a two-month sabbatical. The only expectation of my sabbatical was that I rest and spend time with family and friends. I did not need to preach. I did not need to lead our staff. I did not need to come to the office. I was freed from any and every pastoral responsibility for a whole summer. It was a generous gift.
Before my sabbatical started, a mentor gave me some counsel.
“Resist the urge to work while you are off. Honor the freedom you have been given by enjoying the gift of rest.”
That conversation came to mind when I read our passage today. Now, Paul wrote with much more intensity about something much more serious, but the heart of his concern is that Christians honor the freedom that we have been gifted in Christ.
For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.
—Galatians 5:1
He said they were trying to “be justified by the law,” even though they had already been set free from sin and declared righteous by Jesus. Some were being persuaded that they had to be circumcised in order to be part of the family of God. They were looking to the law for what they already had in Christ.
Imagine if I spent every day of my sabbatical answering emails, going to the office, and preparing sermons in order to somehow earn or prove that I deserve the sabbatical. The time away was not earned; it was given. How much more serious is it then when Christians look to the law, or anything other than Jesus, to try and merit what Jesus freely gives.
Paul helps us by telling us how to use our freedom and how to honor the gift of the gospel.
For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.
—Galatians 5:13
Because of Jesus, we are free to live out the heart of the law by loving God and loving others. We dishonor the gift when we use our freedom to try and earn a right relationship with God. We honor the freedom we have been given when we live like Jesus and love the way He loves.
By the grace of God, all who trust in Jesus are free: Freed not to work for what has been given but free to love the way we have been loved.
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