Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. And yesterday, I did what I always do. I recorded a little podcast and I put it in my adorable little shared folder for my buddy Jeff, who edits this podcast and puts music at the beginning and the end. Sometimes even some fun, you know, original music or an homage to existing music. And when an episode particularly feels like it's lobbing my friend Jeffrey, a softball, I might shoot him a text or something, or even put something in the file name of the shared raw audio of the podcast. I might be like, hey, this music could be fun if you can do a little parody or a riff on that if you have time, you know, whatever. So yesterday we talked about freedom a whole bunch, and the obvious thing to do yesterday would have been the Braveheart theme, but that's boring. You know, I'd be don't want to be that on the nose. So I saw it in a text. I was like, you know, you could do something that's a reference to you know any of these freedom songs that have free or freedom in the name. And I sent that, and then I thought about it for a little while and thought, well, no, you better not do that freedom song by George Michael. That wouldn't no, that's a different kind of thing that that isn't communicating the same value as what Paul's communicating in Galatians 5. Don't do the George Michael one. And I thought a little bit more. And I was like, oh, and also don't do that one. Mmm. Don't do that one. I oh dang. Pretty much any time the word freedom is used in the last thirty-five years of pop culture, it is always for some sort of licentious, selfish, self-indulgent moral nightmare. Huh. Well, isn't that an interesting data point? There aren't nearly as many songs that talk about the opportunity that freedom affords us to do redemptive things, that freedom affords us to be a part of some great and grand story. No, I mean freedom is treated as the opportunity to blow everything else off and do whatever you want. In fact, that's almost the exact lyrics of one of the songs that I'm picturing right now. But that is not what Paul is describing at all in Galatians chapter five. I mean, really, what Paul is describing in all of his letters throughout the Bible, and clearly how Jesus holds himself out, is there is no version of reality whereby any human being is a complete and total free agent, where we have complete and total positive self-determination. The Bible very clearly expresses that you will be one of two things. Whether you believe in God or not, you will be one of two things. You will be a servant, a slave to sin and the consequences of sin, as outlined in the law, sin, death, the human problem, darkest sinful impulses that you have, that other people have. You're either going to be a slave to that, or you will be, I mean, the language is shocking, but let's keep it parallel here, a slave to Christ. Paul's own words for how he describes his status before God. You're gonna have a master either way. The idea of complete and total, I'm free to do what I want, any old time free agency, is a myth because we're finite. We get old and we die and our bodies break down and we forget things. Just the limitations you've already encountered in your day today, where you've bumbled and made mistakes. If you're over the age of 30, at some point today, you've had some little passing moment where you were reminded, I'm not as young as I used to be. Huh, what a funny thing. All of these little hints and realities of your daily life even today remind you you don't have self-sufficiency. Neither do I. We are owned by something. Time, even time, uh entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, call it whatever you want, that is a cruel master, and if we do nothing, ultimately, father time is undefeated, that will be our master. Sin, the rules of the physical world, etc. The other option, the only other option, is the true master of everything, God who is sovereign over everything. So really, like the big thrust of the Bible in terms of where you fit into the story could be simply described as an invitation and a description of how to go from being a slave to the elemental forces of the world, the basic fundamental things that, if nothing happens to intervene, will kill you and will own you through the course of your life. The story of the Bible is kind of like as it pertains to you, how you go from that to being in the service of the great king, a son, a daughter, an heir, an agent of the great king of the great kingdom, the great king who never dies, who holds immortality in his grasp, and who is the owner of everything and transcends even death, even the human problem, and even time. The myth is that there is a third way. And for the Christian rooted in the Bible, I I think they would say that that myth, maybe a better way to describe that, would be a lie. The lie is from the enemy of God, the the serpent, Satan, even to use that term. The lie is that you can have total self-determination and that you can have a freedom that is apart from Christ. It doesn't exist. So one way to sum up the entire question, the whole thing that's being wrestled with here is the Bible in a way, as a document by the power of God, is contending for custody of your soul. Will you leave custody of your soul in its default state, which is a slave to the elemental forces of the world? Or will you become not just a slave, but a son, a daughter, a child, an heir, an agent of the household of the great king, of the kingdom, uh, then the king himself. Well, that's what Paul's driving at here in Galatians. There's no version of Galatians where we get to the end and salvation equals complete and total autonomy, and now as some pseudo-paracristian religions teach, you I guess are kind of your own God. That's not on the table anywhere in the Bible I've read it I I'm just gonna tell you, I've read it more than one time, and it's not there. It's not one of the options. So you are gonna serve one of two masters, that's it. You're gonna be devoted to the one, hate the other, etc. And I mean, here's the the choice. Well, it's for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and don't let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery, but that freedom is in Christ. How much do we see that language throughout the New Testament? Freedom in Christ, freedom in Christ. Not through Christ you get freedom to then have freedom in self. That isn't freedom. In self, as you know, George Michael would sing about it or other pop singers would sing about it, is actually slavery to the elemental forces of the world. It's slavery to the laws of time and aging and forgetfulness and failure and human frailty and sin and ultimately death. So I thought it was kind of a funny realization that came to mind there as I was like, Jeff, just do a freedom song. It'll be fun. Well, nope. No, I guess not. Last time around we talked about what is this freedom that Paul is describing. Okay, it's freedom from sin, it's freedom from the law, it's freedom from the curse of the law, as discussed yesterday. But what is it freedom to? Because the most beautiful freedom is the freedom that frees you up and lifts the burdens off of you so that you can be or do or participate in something that you can't when you're a slave. And that's how Paul has been characterizing it here in the last couple chapters of Galatians. I mean, you used to be in this state of servitude, which means you weren't fully a participant in the most beautiful thing in this analogy, which is the household of the king. But now, through Christ, you are. So this is Paul's own illustration. So the idea is that you're free from these things in order to be free to have life in the Spirit, free to be to an agent of the kingdom of God, to be free to do the redemptive things of God, participate in the redemptive work of God, free to have responsibility in the household of God, to be a part of the truest, realist thing, and play a role in the best thing ever instead of being on the outside looking in. So then what's happening here is Paul is describing an unburdening. The weight of sin and personal obligation to solve the human problem in our own lives is a burden that we can't bear, that we crumble under, it paralyzes us, it makes it impossible for us to do any of that free to stuff. Life by the Spirit is antithetical to life by the law, according to what we're reading here in the Bible. But in Christ, that burden is lifted. The price of sin, the wages of sin, which is death, those wages are paid on our behalf at the great expense of God. Well, now all of a sudden, all of that burden is gone. So what does that mean? Like, oh, hey, now I can go and start all over doing whatever I want. Well, no, that's not what happens. Because simultaneously, as that burden is lifted off of a person who is now in Christ, there's also a transformation. The old is gone, the new has come, and life by the spirit begins. All of that old stuff with slavery, Paul likens to life by the flesh. It's a failed strategy toward freedom that ultimately leaves you in bondage forever. Life by the Spirit is a life initiated by the work of Christ, and a life infused by the righteousness of Christ, a life in the Spirit, and a life that makes us free in Christ with the freedom to do proactive stuff. So effectively the pivot here is from reactive stuff. I need to clean up my act, I need to read all of the rules and try to adhere to all of the rules and do all of these things that will never work. My whole life will be dedicated to reacting to the consequences of sin and my fallen state. It's a pivot from a reactive state of being to a proactive state of being. My sins are dealt with. My state of guilt has been resolved in Christ. I no longer bear that burden. Well, what do I do now? Oh, well, now you get life by the Spirit because now you're actually free, and now you actually get to participate in the life of the kingdom, and you have a cherished role in the household of God. That's how Paul is characterizing it. So yesterday we talked a lot about the freedom from stuff. Today we talked a little bit about the freedom to stuff and how freedom in Christ means being freed up to be a part of the truest, realist, best stuff ever. But we're doing all of this coming out of just one triumphant verse here in Galatians 5, 1 that has the soaring anthemic soundtrack music in the background. We'll let Paul himself build out these points more robustly than I've done over the next few days. I haven't decided whether we're gonna go look at another part of the Bible tomorrow or whether we're gonna move forward, so I'm not gonna make any promises that I'm just gonna end up breaking anyway. We'll go where we go next, and it'll be rad. All right, I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.