Faith, Freedom and the Fight to Stand Firm

How God’s Grace Brings True Freedom. True freedom isn’t doing whatever you want—it’s living the life God created you for. In this special Independence Day message, Pastor Chris Teien takes us through Galatians 5 to show how God’s grace brings freedom from sin, freedom to depend on Christ, and freedom to love and serve others. This is the kind of freedom worth standing for in a world that’s losing its grip on truth. 

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/17418876

Key Points:

#1 – God’s Grace Brings True Freedom from Slavery (Galatians 5:1; Exodus 12–13; Romans 6:16–18)
 Jesus sets us free from the burden of sin and legalism. Like Israel delivered from Egypt, we’ve been rescued by the blood of the Lamb and called to walk in new life.

#2 – God’s Grace Calls Us to Freedom in Dependence (Galatians 5:13; Exodus 14; John 15:5)
 Biblical freedom isn’t self-reliance—it’s Spirit-led dependence. We’re called to serve, not indulge the flesh. God’s strength sustains us when we feel trapped or weary.

#3 – God’s Grace Leads Us to Freedom Through Love (Galatians 5:14; Exodus 19:5–6; 1 Peter 2:9)
 Freedom is fulfilled when we love others. God has made us a holy people, set apart to live with purpose and proclaim His grace through love in action.

Notable Quotes:

• “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free… Stand firm then.”
• “Freedom isn’t found in independence from God—but in complete dependence on Him.”
• “The grace that saves you is the same grace that sends you to love and serve.”

Actionable Takeaways:

• Reflect: Am I living in the freedom Christ has given me—or falling back into old chains?
• Serve: Use your freedom not for yourself, but to bless and build up others.
• Depend: Stay connected to Christ each day; apart from Him, we can do nothing.
• Stand: Hold fast to truth in love, even when culture pulls the other direction.

Keywords:

freedom, grace, Galatians 5, Christian liberty, faith, Independence Day, gospel, Holy Spirit, truth, spiritual growth, love

Challenge:
 Live out your faith with freedom—by standing firm in truth, depending on Christ, and loving others with the grace you’ve been given.

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The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:00

Alright, so I want to talk about when grace brings true freedom. When grace brings true freedom. That's so much more than thinking about our nation's independence all those years ago. It's so much more than thinking about just us as Americans in America on a day in July. It's about our freedom in Christ. It's about our forgiveness and our opportunities that Jesus gives us.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

By grace we stand, both free and strong. A nation blessed. A freedom stone. Our flag still waves. The stars shine bright. The symbolized. Our nation is bright. The greater still.

Chris T 2:09

So I want to look at Galatians chapter five. And I'm only going to look at really a few verses, but I wanted to just highlight for context in Galatians chapter five. So Galatians chapter five, verse one, if you remember that Galatians and Romans reads like a legal document, kind of reminds me of reading over your life insurance policy that gives you the who, what, when, where, and how things will be covered, how things are taken care of, what scenarios and all of that. And Paul in Romans and Galatians lays that out, tries to help the Jewish people that were committed and accustomed to the old way, the old covenant, the old testament, see how we're supposed to live now that Jesus died for our sin, was resurrected, ascended into heaven, and the Holy Spirit has come and given us the New Testament, the new covenant, and the new way to live. So he's trying to help them see that it's not Jesus plus all of the things that the Old Testament added on, but it's Jesus, and the ultimate form of love, the ultimate commandment is to love God and to love others. So in Galatians chapter 5, verse 1, he says, Paul writes, 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. A yoke of slavery to sin, a yoke of slavery to the Old Testament law. And so I'm going to read a little more here. In verse 13, then he talks all about circumcision. So we'll skip to verse 13, and he says, Live by the Spirit. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. Don't use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. And he talks about that. And then verse 16, he says, So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And then he lists in verse 19 all the different acts of the flesh that are destructive, that you don't want to give into because you're free in Christ. You don't want to give into because now you've got Jesus Christ's righteousness imputed to you. You're forgiven of your sin. But just because you're free doesn't mean that you should do these things. Verse 19, he says the acts of the flesh are obvious sexual immorality, impurity, debouchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. So therefore, that is not what your freedom is for. It is not a freedom to do whatever you think sounds fun or good or anything like that. It is a freedom to serve Christ, a freedom to live new in Christ, a freedom again from sin and from the law, a freedom to live a new life. And then in verse 22, he talks about the fruit of the Spirit. And in verse 25, he says, Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. So that's what Paul writes about in Galatians chapter 5. And you see it progresses and it's again teaching us how to live. Now, some people would say that's not freedom. That's not freedom, that's just saying, oh, you're free from you're free from that, but now you're a slave to this. And even Bob Dylan from Hibbing years ago said you're going to serve somebody. It may be the devil, it may be the Lord, but you're going to serve somebody. And if people in society, if people in the church, if people in our communities just think that they can do whatever they want and it's not going to affect them, they're going to be sorely disappointed. If they live their life according to that list, if they live their life in a way that has all those destructive things listening listed, discord is conflict, strife, or a lack of harmony. Debouchery is excessive indulgence and sensual pleasures. Wild living. So it's not a freedom, true freedom, to do anything that seems fun. Because if you have any wisdom at all, you know that if you give in to these things, these are all self-destructive qualities, self-destructive things that will really ruin your life and ruin your relationships and ruin your family and probably ruin your business. If you live according to the desires of the flesh, the temptations of the devil and everything else, it is self-destructive. And it's disappointing. And it leads to sadness, it leads to depression, it leads to regret and sorrow. So we don't want to live that way. That is not what true freedom is. So number one, God's grace brings true freedom from slavery. So again, I read Galatians chapter 5, verse 1, and it says, as it was on the screen, because Jasper did a great job. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Stand firm then. Stand firm. So if I have time in my message, I'd like to talk a little bit about society and how people want to move us off of our moral positions or, you know, our Christian heritage or the things that I think made society good in the past. And everybody wants to throw that out and do what's right in their own eyes. And that is not a good thing. But it is for freedom. Christ wants us to be free in Him. Christ wants us to be free to serve. Christ wants us to be free from regret that holds us back so we can walk in forgiveness and move forward, knowing that we have a personal relationship. Those of us who have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, a personal relationship, a connection to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit to be empowered to make a difference in our community, in our families, in our workplace, in the world in which we live. And Jesus told us we're supposed to be salt and light in the world. And if we feel that we are slaves to the past life, if we feel we're slaves to trying to keep the Old Testament law, which is next to impossible, if you tried to keep the list. Now there's a bunch of things in the Old Testament that I think are good and for today that make a lot of sense that we should do. But our motivation isn't to just do the list so that God accepts us. Our motivation should be if we're truly in Christ, we love God so much and we love others so much that we want to do those kinds of things. We want to do those things that make a difference in the world. We want to do those things that show love, and that is the kind of freedom that Jesus wants us to have, wants us to experience. And so in the Old Testament, in Exodus chapter 12, Israel was in Egypt and they were under the harsh rule of Pharaoh. And no matter how hard they tried to work, they couldn't escape, they couldn't earn their freedom, they couldn't get free. Actually, if you read the story, Pharaoh make them work them harder and harder. And God came along and sent Moses and instituted the Passover, and with that the blood of a lamb, Jesus, their homes, they took, they sacrificed sheep. If you remember the story, they took the blood of the lamb and they put it over the door post of the house. And then when the angel of death came over, the firstborn lived. And if they didn't have that covering, then the firstborn died. And God instituted a Passover. Exodus 12, 13 says, the blood will be a sign for you of the on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. And so then Exodus 13 talks about the consecration of the firstborn and begins Israel's journey out of bondage. And that's kind of a parallel to what Paul is talking about to the Galatians, as far as Jesus has covered us, Jesus has set us free, Jesus is releasing us from bondage. You remember in Romans chapter 6, a great passage that talks about dying to sin and living a life to Christ. In Romans 6, 16, Paul writes, Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone who's obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. That is a good thing to be a slave to. That is a good thing to know that you are his. Jesus has purchased you and that you are in Christ. So I live in America, I'm glad to live in America. But for first and foremost, I am a Christ follower, and I do enjoy many of the things that our parents and grandparents and forefathers did to get us laws that were helpful for society and give us opportunities. And now as we see different people trying to pull all that apart, Christians, some Christians are told to just be quiet and sit down and that your time is over, but it only makes sense to stand up for what we believe in and know that the country isn't our savior, and Jesus is our savior. But if we can live in the country with Jesus and enjoy freedoms, many freedoms that people don't get in other countries, to worship and to share our faith and to freely share the Bible and what we believe about the Bible. We should take every opportunity, we should be thankful for it, we should do what we can to defend it. Number two, God's grace calls us to freedom in dependence. A freedom in dependence. You would think that a freedom would make us independent, a freedom would allow us to say, well, now I can do whatever I want. It doesn't really matter. Can you imagine if all of a sudden we were told that we're no longer bound by the law of the highways and we can do whatever we want? And if the forget about the speed limit, just drive however feels good to you. You know, maybe you want to yield at the red light, but I don't know, just do what you need to do. It'd be total chaos on the roads. We have expectations that people will stop at a red light. We have expectations that people will go a reasonable speed, and we have expectations that as we're following the rules of the law, that other people will too, and that's kind of the way that it works. So that's not so chaotic. And so I hope that they'll have a little website or whatever, they'll send something to everybody in the community that says the appropriate way to use a two-lane roundabout so that you know when you're supposed to yield and when you're supposed to go, as they put a double roundabout out here. Otherwise, that's kind of crazy when people don't know how it works. It's not good when people don't know how it works. But in verse 13, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly in love. And what a great way to live as a Christian. People will notice the way that you care for them, the way that you talk around them, the way that you live out your faith. I've heard from some people that work at restaurants on Sundays after church that sometimes the Christians after church are the worst crowd. They are rude, they don't tip well, they carry on gossipy conversations and all sorts of other things. So in a former church that I was in, there was a lady that worked at Baker Square, a popular restaurant for people to go to after church. She's like, oh man, if you knew how much the church crowd really needed to practice what they heard preached or live their life for Jesus, she's like, I'm a Christian, and you know, I'm just kind of ashamed. But my non-Christian co-workers, just like, if that's that's what faith in Christ looks like, I don't want that. So don't be one of those people. Don't be one of those people. So, okay, in Exodus chapter 14, Israel was free from Egypt, but still had to depend on God. So in Exodus 14, they find themselves trapped between Pharaoh's army and the Red Sea, and it hadn't parted yet. And so they said, This is terrible. We should just go back to Egypt. So, didn't they see God work in the plagues? Didn't they see God work to help them escape? Didn't they see God work at the Passover? But they just went back to their old ways and they said, Oh, oh, we can only depend on ourselves. Oh, we can't trust God to do a new thing. Oh, we can't trust that God is going to get us through. Exodus 14, 10. As Pharaoh approached the Israelites. As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were Egyptians marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. And Moses said, The Lord will fight for you. You only need to be still. So that is a good thing. When the Lord fights for you, when you realize that you are free and that you should live like you're free. So if Jesus sets you free, you will be free indeed. I was reading this about President Lincoln and how he told the former slaves to live free. I'm going to read it to you. In the last days of the Civil War, the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia, fell to the Union Army. Abraham Lincoln insisted on visiting the city. Even though no one knew he was coming, slaves recognized him and immediately recognized him immediately and thronged around him. He had liberated them by the Emancipation Proclamation, and now Lincoln's army had set them free. According to Admiral David Porter, an eyewitness, Lincoln spoke to the throng around him. He said, My poor friends, you are free, free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it. Liberty is your birthright. But Lincoln also warned them not to abuse their freedom. Let the world see that you merit your freedom, Lincoln said. Don't let your joy carry you into excesses. Learn the laws and obey them. So that's what it's like to live the message of Jesus and our life, too. So Jesus gives us our true birthright, our spiritual freedom. So it shouldn't lead us into disobedience or sin. It should lead us into following Christ and doing right. And what a great thing. So John 15 5. John 15 5, Jesus says, I'm the vine and you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. We all need to be independent of the world system and the philosophies around us that try to push us away from Jesus, but we all need to be dependent on Jesus and the Holy Spirit to work in our lives. So when I have an opportunity to wrestle with a passage or a concept during the week, because I get to stand up here and share with you some of what I've read or found or learned or been reminded of, I need to be dependent when I stand up here. You need to be dependent on the Lord when you try to share your faith with others, when you try to serve your neighbor, when you try to live out your faith at work, when you try to serve in kids' ministry or youth ministry or lead a Bible study or whatever else. We need to trust and be dependent on the Lord and trust that He will get us through. When we are faithful to show up and dependent on God to work through us, He does so many things that we wouldn't even expect. Sometimes we're just amazed at how the Lord has worked through us to our surprise. We were faithful to show up, and then the Holy Spirit kicked in and we were able to accomplish that task or that goal or share that message or do that thing. And the results were great, and we praise God for it. What a good thing. I don't know if you've come across this or heard about this at all, but whenever a Christian in society nowadays stands up in the wrong group and says, we could pray about that or talk about Christian principles or Christian values or whatever, you're automatically given a label of a Christian nationalist. A derogatory term. And I've heard some pastors, not from my group, say that there's no place for the American flag in the church. But nonetheless, there are veterans in this church, in this community that fought for this country. There are still good things about the United States of America. So let me just talk about these things. So you're labeled a Christian nationalist if you show that you're patriotic, if you respect authority, if you desire biblical values to shape our laws and culture. But let me be clear: the Christians that I know do not worship America, do not see America as the Savior, do not see that America is God's only chosen nation in the world. There are some Christians who think that, but that is not us. So we do not worship America. We worship Jesus. We do not confuse the cross with the flag, but we do thank God that we live in a nation that has been was founded with biblical influence and the belief in human dignity, moral law, personal responsibility, and liberty. So that's not idolatry, that's gratitude and stewardship. So I think that we all agree that we want to support good authorities, that people that are in charge, we are blessed when they do what's right. And unfortunately, we have a news system and like YouTube videos and everything else that lacks accountability. So people can spin their story to make us think things that aren't necessarily true. So when we hear the news nowadays, we have to be discerning and try to figure out okay, is it true or isn't it true? When I was in high school, I took Russian studies and also Chinese studies as electives, because I was a weird kid, I guess. But we had Pravda magazine, which was the Russian sponsored magazine, and we learned quickly that the real stories were hidden in the back, not in the front, that there was a lot of propaganda in the front. But if you really wanted to find out what was going on, sometimes you could find it in the back pages. And I feel like when you see a YouTube video that says something, it might not be true at all. And currently there's no accountability. So the more views they get, the more hits they get, the more money they make. So what they want you to do is look, get upset, share it, view it, even if it's not true, because that's how they work. And in our news cycle, too, that happens. And so we need to be aware of that, we need to be discerning. But again, Christians stand for truth. And so when we stand for truth, then we get this label. So because we affirm God's design for marriage, one man and one woman, because that's what it says in Genesis 2 and Matthew 19, that's what Jesus said. We affirm that God created humanity in male and female. So that's not hate, that's truth. We believe in compassionate, fair, and lawful immigration that upholds human dignity and the rule of law. So you read a lot in the Old Testament, especially about how to treat immigrants, and so I think that we should work as a country to make sure that there's a great immigration procedure in place. I know some pastors who actually have recently become American citizens, and the tests that they had to take and what they had to go to, a a friend from a large church down in the cities was a Canadian who just became an American and what he went through to get his citizenship. So we stand for liberty and justice, not everyone doing what is right in their own. Eyes and we oppose deception in media. So this nation, as you know, has a Christian heritage. The Mayflower Compact Pilgrims stated their journey was for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. The Declaration of Independence contains words like the nature, nature's God, creator, supreme judge of the world, and divine providence. Many state constitutions in the late 1700s included explicit references to God in the Bible, required and required belief in God for holding office in encouraged cultural or Christian moral morality. Encouraged Christian morality. So John Witherspoon, Presbyterian pastor and signer of the Declaration of Independence and President of Princeton, trained many founding fathers in Christian theology and law. Samuel Adams, called the father of the American Revolution, deeply Christian, said rites come from the God of nature. James Madison called religion the foundation of civil society, and he was mentioned by Witherspoon. And Noah Webster, author of the First American Dictionary, emphasized the Bible as the source of morality and language and wrote that Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children ought to be instructed. And if you want to learn how to, if you want a good dictionary to understand the King James Bible, you get a 18, I'm not sure what year it is, 1850 something, Noah Webster's dictionary. So the King James Bible was actually used to teach the children how to read. The New England Primer, which went from 1690 to the 1800s, was the most widely used textbook in over 150 years. It used the alphabet to teach biblical truths. An example is A, in Adam's fall, we sinned all. So many colleges and institutions pursued religious liberty and even encouraged or required scripture memorization. So, and so many things about how the Ten Commandments and biblical concepts and the rule of law in society. So many things. But that's all turned as education has been secularized. So removal of prayer and Bible reading in the public schools starting back in the 1960s, and a shift to secular humanism as institutions began promoting a worldview that centers on human reason and morality apart from God, replacing biblical values with relativism. So this live your truth kind of moral relativism. And so media and entertainment try to do everything they can to push anti-Christian values and loose moralities, all these different things. Judges have made rulings that go against and redefine biblical marriage, abortion, and many things like that. So some terms that get pushed upon people because if you don't have a strong argument, but you want to shut somebody down, you start calling them derogatory terms. Some people don't even really know what the derogatory terms really mean, but they'll push them on you quickly, and it might shut you down, it might make you be quiet. But I would encourage you to ask them to define their term and then explain why you think that biblical values are important, why you see how that would help society and historically how it did help society. So again, the first one, Christian nationalist term is increasingly used to label Christians who express patriotic values or a desire to see biblical principles shape public life. Xenophobe, people who support legal immigration, border security, or national sovereignty may be labeled xenophobic, implying hatred for foreigners. I don't think that's what we are, but that is what people get accused of. Homophobe or transphobe, Christians who affirm biblical teachings on marriage and gender are often labeled as phobic and hateful. And if they don't know what to call you, they just call you a bigot or a hater. Or if you question climate change or evolution, you're a science denier. And if you support constitutional limits, traditional values, or oppose progressive overreach, you're branded a fascist or anti-democracy. We have this great opportunity to serve the Lord. We have this great opportunity to take what we have for freedoms in America right now and try to keep it going. Try to do what we can in religious life. So as we think about the reasons the Roman Empire fell and the reason why certain countries don't seem to last forever because of moral decay and because, again, everybody does what's right in their own eyes, we can remember that our country, it's pretty easy to see, had a Christian foundation, had a biblical foundation. And while every area of society might push against us, every area of society might, in the spiritual battle of life, because it's really not about governments against each other as much as it is about Satan trying to destroy our lives, that we need to keep pushing forward. George Washington said in his farewell address to the nation, do not let anyone claim the tribute of American patriotism if they ever attempt to remove religion from politics. John Quincy Adams said the highest glory of the American Revolution was this, that it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. So Patrick Henry said, it cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then the last part was grace, God's grace leads us to leads us to freedom through love. And so we've had a series recently, a lot, on love, and we're to love each other. Galatians 5 14, the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: love your neighbor as yourself. So in Exodus 19, God had told the Israelites, if you obey me fully and keep my commandment, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession, although the whole earth is mine. You will be for me a kingdom of priests in a holy nation. And these are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. And Peter, 1 Peter 2 9, he repeated this. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. So yes, God still has a plan for Israel, but also Christ followers, Christians, are this holy nation. And as we as Christ followers live out the Christian life, we can expect God's blessing. We can expect God to move, God to act, and God to do wonderful things when we follow his ways. And that is a great way to live. So we're going to start a series in Psalms next. So, Lord Jesus, I thank you so much that we can talk about what you've done in this country in the past. God, we pray you'd continue to do great things. We pray that no matter what happens, that we would be loyal to following Jesus and loving and caring for others. Lord, we do pray for a solution to a lot of the political problems in our society and the solution to wars. We pray you'd bring us peace. If there's anybody here that hasn't received you as our Lord and Savior, Lord, we pray that they would realize their need and that they would seek you. Lord, we pray that they would talk to us and ask us what it means to be a Christian. How can they be a Christ follower? And we can give them one of those How to Find God New Testaments and answer their questions and help them to see how to come to Jesus. So we just thank you for our country and the Independence Day that we celebrate in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Lord, on this Independence Day, we pray for our nation, for wisdom and direction, for peace and protection, for liberty and justice, for strength and fortitude, for faith, hope and love. We thank you for the freedoms given to us and for the beauty all around us. We believe that we unite what is divided among us and restore what is broken in the spirit. And for all of this, we thank you.