Good morning, it's good to be with y'all this morning, bringing you greetings from South Georgia, from Valdosta and Valdosta State University. As Michael said, I'm John Gordy, the incoming campus minister at Valdosta State RUF. RUF has been there going on, going into year four now, and this will be our first year with RUF. My wife Sarah and our two girls are with us this morning, Grace and Charlotte, and we just got to Valdosta from, all the way from Rochester, Minnesota. But, as you can hear me speak up here, you're probably thinking, that can't be where that guy's from. So, I'm from Georgia. I grew up in Louisville, Georgia, a couple hours from here between the Warner Robins area and Augusta. And my wife, Sarah, I grew up in this area, actually in the Warner Robins area. They grew up in Warner Robins. Her dad worked at the Air Force Base and went to Perry Prez for a number of years and later First Prez Macon. And so we're native Georgians and glad to be back in the South and glad to be with you all here this morning. Thank you just for the chance to be here and to serve you all and thank you for your support of RUF at Valdosta State. It's a ministry that's been very impactful on me in my life when I was up at University of Georgia. And so we are thankful to be able to serve the students of Valdosta State and thankful for this church's support of this ministry. This morning, if you have your Bibles with you, we're going to be in Galatians chapter 5. They're in the next to last chapter of Galatians. We're jumping in to the tail end of Paul's letter to the church there in Galatia. We'll be looking at verses 1 through 15 this morning. Just a couple words I'll say about Galatians just to kind of give us context this morning is that all throughout Galatians, Paul is is defending the gospel of grace. The gospel of grace meaning that God has come to us. God has come to us out of His own initiative and He's come to us in His grace and His mercy through Christ. He's provided the way of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. That Christ fulfilled the law that we could not fulfill. And we receive that. We have access to that forgiveness by faith in Christ. And Paul, as I said, has been defending the gospel of grace throughout this letter. He's doing so in our text this morning, pretty forcefully. And he just got through doing that back in chapter 4, if you look back. And he was saying, if you are a Christian, if you are a Christian, you are a child of the free woman, Sarah, that you are justified, you are made right with God through faith in Christ and nothing else. And so, if we are justified by faith in Christ and what he's done on our behalf, Paul says that we've been set free. He says that very clearly in chapter 5 and verse 1, that we have been set free if we are in Christ. So it leads us to that question of what does it mean to be free in Christ? What does it mean for us to have freedom in Christ? Does it mean that we can live however we want to and do whatever we want to? Because oftentimes that's what we believe. We think if I've put my faith in Christ years ago, I can live however I want to. It doesn't really matter. God's Word has no role in my life. And so what does it mean to be free in Christ? That's the question that we're going to be looking at and getting into this morning. But before that we need to read God's Word. And so if you're willing now and able, I invite you to stand as we read Galatians chapter 5 verses 1 through 15. For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if our brother still preached circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. For you are called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated now. When I was about four or five years old, I had just come home from school one day and I was in kindergarten and my mom was there in the kitchen cooking dinner for my sister and I and my dad. And my sister, she's a year younger than me, and she was kind of playing around. We were sitting across from the stove at kind of like a bar, like we'd sit up on a bar stool. And so she was kind of playing around. She was probably about, three years old at this time, and she kept playing around, acting like she was gonna touch the stove. And of course, my mom's cooking, I think she was cooking spaghetti that day, and the stove was hot, and my mom had warned her, if you touch that eye, you're gonna burn your hand, don't do that. And so my sister, she had the freedom to touch anything in that area that she wanted to, except that one spot that my mom had told her not to touch, and that stove eye that was burning hot. She had told her, don't touch that. So, of course, what does my sister do in the next minute, a minute later? She reaches out and she plops her hand down on that red-hot eye of the stove and she burns her hand. She quickly pulls it off, of course. She's screaming, hollering, crying, and we kind of laugh at that story in some ways, but it really describes us. As I said, my sister had the freedom to do anything she wanted to do other than touch that one spot. And of course, she abused her freedom and she touched that spot that my mom had told her not to touch. And that's what we do as human beings. We abuse the freedoms that we have. Maybe as a young child, your parents allowed you to ride your bike up and down the street that you grew up on, but instead of obeying your parents, you would ride your bike three blocks over or go somewhere you were not supposed to, again, abusing the freedom that your mom and dad had given you to ride your bike. you misuse it. Or maybe as a teenager you've gotten your driver's license and you're beginning to drive around town and drive yourself to school and to work and maybe to hang out with friends and things like that. But you abuse that freedom and you go somewhere your parents don't allow you to go. We love to abuse the freedom that we have as human beings. In living here in the United States, in America, we have great freedoms here, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of religion. These are great things that we have, blessings that we have, but oftentimes we abuse the freedoms that we even have here And we want to do whatever we want to do, and we want to abuse this freedom that we have. And when we do that, we are neglecting those around us, and we fail to love and serve those around us that God has placed us around. We abuse our freedom and live for ourselves. And oftentimes, I think we even want to be left alone from God Himself. We don't want anything limiting our lives at all. And so we think if we try to follow God, if we try to follow His Word, then somehow our lives are not going to be as fun as they could be. We're going to miss out on something. And so we abuse the freedoms that we have. We love to do this as human beings. We want to live our lives as if we had no restrictions placed on us. And so as we come to God's Word this morning, to Galatians chapter 5, We hear Paul saying that Christ has set us free. Again, that we have freedom in Christ. And so it brings us to that question I mentioned just a few moments ago before we read God's Word this morning, is what does it mean for us to live free in Christ, to have freedom in Christ? Does it mean that we can live our lives however we want to? Because oftentimes I think that's what we want to do. We want to live life how we want to. And so God's Word has something to say to us this morning as it helps us answer this question. What it means to live as free people, to have freedom in Christ. The first thing we want to look at this morning is what is it we've been set free from? We see in verse 1, Paul tells us that we've been set free in Christ. He says, stand firm, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. And so Paul is saying, stand firm. He's saying, in other words, hold fast, hold fast to the blessings, to the freedom that we have in Christ, that we have a right standing before God. And it's not based on anything that we've done, but it's based on what Christ has done on our behalf, and we receive this by faith alone. And so Paul says, stand firm in that. Stand firm in the blessings we have from Christ. And he contrasts this with a negative command. He says, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. That yoke of slavery that Paul is talking about here is the Old Testament law. The Old Testament law that cannot save us. But oftentimes we live as if God's word, as if following His law can save us. And that's what these Judaizers, this group of people that had come into the church in Galatia and had been influencing the church, that's what they were preaching, that's what they were practicing, and they were influencing the church in this way. They were saying, you must keep the law in addition to believing in Christ. And they were requiring people to be circumcised in order to become a Christian. And remember, circumcision was that covenant sign that God gave to His people that marked them out as His people, as His covenant people. And what these Judaizers were saying was that these Christians had to become circumcised in order to really be a Christian. In other words, what they were saying was it was Jesus plus the law. And so in essence, what they were saying was Jesus wasn't good enough. Jesus wasn't good enough to save them. They needed something else. They needed the law. They needed circumcision. And so Paul is upset with this teaching. He's hot. Paul is not a happy guy in most parts of this letter because he is upset with the way this group of folks are influencing this church that he's planted some time ago. And so Paul goes on to say, he says, if you accept circumcision, then Jesus is going to be of no advantage to you. He says, Jesus will be of no advantage to you. And that will be is in the future tense. And so what Paul is alluding to is that future day, that day of judgment, when Jesus returns and judges all the earth and all who have ever lived. and renews the heavens and the earth. When Jesus comes back on that day, he says those who were trusting in the law, trusting in circumcision, that Jesus will be of no advantage to them because you are relying on your own good works. Your standing before God is based on your own efforts. And on that day, Christ is going to be of no advantage to you. And he goes on to say, if you accept circumcision, that you're going to be obligated to keep all of the law. And so we hear Paul say this and we think, where's Paul pulling this out from? Is he just pulling this out of thin air? Well, Paul was raised as an Israelite and was a Pharisee before his conversion. And so Paul knew the Old Testament law. He knew God's Word. In fact, even back in Galatians chapter 3, Paul references Deuteronomy chapter 27 where he says, And so what Paul is saying is, these Judaizers, these folks who are influencing the church, they are condemning themselves because if they are insisting on circumcision, then they've got to keep all the law. And he's not just saying that, he's not just saying that's Paul's word, that's what's coming from God's word itself there, that if you do not, if you don't keep all, if you try to follow one part of the law, you're obligated to keep all of it. That's what Paul is saying here. And we know, and Paul knew, that no one had kept the law perfectly except for Jesus Christ himself. That Jesus was the only one who kept God's Word perfectly. He knew himself, he knew his people, he knew human nature, he knew that no one could keep God's Word perfectly. That the power of sin keeps us from doing so. And he goes on to say in verse 4 that those who are severed from Christ, they have fallen away from grace. In other words, they are alienated, they are separated from Christ and His benefits, the benefits that we have through our union with Christ. These are no benefit to the Galatians because they're seeking their justification through their own works, through circumcision and following God's law, that God's grace in Christ is no use to them. They've fallen away. They're seeking their own righteousness, and their own works, and their own merit. And they're not resting in Christ's finished work on the cross. And so, just in these first few verses, we see that God's Word, God's law, is heavy. It's a burden. And if we are trying to seek our justification through God's law, then Jesus is going to be of no advantage to us. That we are obligated to keep all the law, and in fact, we are cut off from Christ and his benefits. And so that's Paul's focus in these first few verses, but then as he shifts in verse 5, he shifts to talking about Christians, and he shifts his focus from the Judaizers to the Christians there in the churches. He's writing this letter, and he says in verse 5, he says, That hope of righteousness that Paul's talking about here is that future glorification, that day when we'll be made free from sin when Christ returns and we will spend eternity with Christ on the new heavens and new earth, on a renewed new heavens and new earth. And we don't work for this, Paul says, but we wait for it. We wait for it by resting in the finished work of Christ on our behalf. And he goes on to say in verse 6, being circumcised does not matter, but neither does uncircumcision. And what Paul is getting at here is what really matters is where are we putting our faith, where are we putting our trust as Christians? Are we putting in our own goodness, our own merit, or are we resting in Christ's finished work on our behalf? And this question applies to us here today. We have to ask ourselves today, if you're a Christian, what are you resting in? What are you putting your faith in? What is your trust in? Are you resting in the finished work of Christ on your behalf? Or are you resting in something else that you think you must do in order for God to love you? Because really what's at stake here as we answer this question is the gospel. And that's what Paul is fighting for. Paul is fighting for the heart of the gospel here in Galatians chapter five. He's asking are we made right with God by works of the law or by faith in Christ and what he has done on our behalf? It's a question, these are questions that we always must answer and remind ourselves of. What are we putting our trust in? Where are we resting? In our own goodness or are we resting in Christ and what he has done on our behalf? Because as these false teachers are insisting on circumcision and the keeping of the law, basically what they're saying is Christ is not good enough for them. Christ is not good enough to save them. And we laugh at that and think, don't they get it? Don't they see that Christ is what they need? But this is oftentimes how we live, I think, as Christians. We live as if we are trying to be made right with God apart from faith in Christ. And we add requirements to what it means to being a Christian. And so we have to ask ourselves today, what are those things that you are putting your faith in or your trust in outside of Christ that you think makes you right with God? Some of those things could be our theology. We think that having good and sound theology, you know, how well I know the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Confession of Faith, or the number of theology books I've read. I'm more spiritual, I'm more confessional than those folks over there because I've read these books, and God loves me better because I've done these things. Now, I'm not saying that we need to have good and sound theology. Those are important things, but it doesn't save us. Or maybe it's just coming to church, going to youth group, going to Sunday school, kind of going through the motions of church. Or maybe it's being born into a Christian family, going to a Christian school, reading our Bibles daily on a regular basis, praying, being kind, being nice to one another. Oftentimes, we look upon these things and think, well, God's going to love us better because I'm doing these things. And these are not necessarily bad things. Like I said, the problem is, though, they can't save us. Being born into a Christian family is a great thing. That's one of the main ways, one of the primary ways in which God has revealed His grace to people is through families, through His covenant with families. Reading our Bible is a good thing to do. That's how God has revealed Himself to us, through His written word. He reveals the gospel to us through his word. And so these are good things to have. Sound theology, all these things are great to have, but they don't save us. That's the problem. They don't save us, but oftentimes we live our lives as if these things do. And so if we are seeking our justification by anything other than Christ, then we are really not free at all. We're not free, not truly free. And instead, we're enslaved to that thing that we try to gain God's acceptance with. And we're not really free until we rest in the finished work of Christ. on our behalf for what Christ has done for us at the cross. And so if you're here today and you're trusting in anything other than Christ's finished work at the cross, then Christ is of no advantage to you. And instead, your security is found in the law. But we know that it's a burden that we cannot keep because we know if we've tried to follow God's word just for one day, it's impossible to do perfectly. We cannot do it. And so we see here, just in these opening verses, that we are free from the burden of the law. If we are in Christ, we are free from the burden of the law. We're not justified by the law, we're justified by faith in Christ, and this gives us true freedom. But we oftentimes struggle to live as free people. Brooks Hatland was a man who struggled to live as a free man. Brooks Hatland was the librarian in the Shawshank Redemption, one of my favorite movies of all time. Brooks was the librarian there in the prison, and if you know the story and seen the movie, Brooks went into prison in the early 1900s, and he was released on parole some 50 years later, and the world had changed. He had a hard time adjusting to life outside of prison. And in fact, he said everybody went out and got in a big hurry. And so he struggled living as a free man. He was working in a local grocery store and he was living in an apartment. And he said he continued to think about breaking his parole and finding something that would get him sent back to prison so he could go back to the only life he knew. Again, he didn't know how to live as a free man. He was institutionalized, as Red would say. That was Morgan Freeman's character in the movie. He was institutionalized, and so he struggled to live as a free man. He was continually thinking about ways to break his parole so he could return to the only life he knew. That's what the Galatian church is doing the same thing. After being set free in Christ, being made right with God by faith in Christ, they're seeking to return to their old way of life. They're struggling to live as free people and they are insisting on circumcision, the law, as a way of earning God's forgiveness. And they are forgetting they've been set free, they've been set free from the demands and the burden of the law through faith in Christ. And so the first thing we see this morning is that we are free from the burden of the law. If we are in Christ, if we have put our faith in Christ, we are set free from the burden of the law. God's Word, the penalty for not following God's Word, no longer bears on us. Christ has taken that on our behalf at the cross, and we receive that by faith. And so we've been set free. But if we've been set free, it brings us to the question of why is it so difficult to live as free people? And Paul knows this. Paul knows the difficulty of living as free people. He sees that happening in the church, and so he answers that in verse 7. He questions the church. He says, who hindered you from obeying the truth? He knows, basically, he knows what's going on here. Paul knows that someone has told them a different gospel than the one that he had preached to them. It's not the gospel of grace that Paul had preached to them. And so he's saying, who has hindered you? Who has kept you from obeying the truth? Who has kept you from obeying the truth that you've been set free in Christ? And he's saying this teaching is not from God, the one who's called you to faith in Christ. And he goes on to say in verse 9 that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And we hear that and some of us may wonder, you know, what is Paul getting at there? And as I prepared this sermon this week, I learned a lot about baking and yeast and dough. And of course, if you know anything about baking though, yeast will rise and spread throughout the dough as it's baked in the oven. And so what Paul is saying here with a little leaven leavens the whole lump, he's using this analogy, basically he's talking about legalism. He's saying a little legalism, a little teaching, a little legalistic teaching can spread and infect the entire church. If we're not careful, and he's warning the church to be on guard against this type of teaching, because too much is at stake. The gospel of grace is at stake here, and Paul is fighting and contending for that gospel. And he goes on, though, in verse 10 and says he's confident that gospel will prevail, even though there's false teaching. Even though false teaching is spreading throughout the church, Paul is confident that the gospel will prevail and the one who's troubling them will suffer the penalty for their actions. And that word in the original language for penalty means judgment or divine judgment. So what Paul is getting at here is that those folks that are leading God's people astray, that one day they're going to have to answer to God for what they have done, for promoting a false gospel, for leading his people away from the truth. And he goes on, too, to say, if I'm being persecuted, if I'm pro-circumcision, then why am I still being persecuted? And Paul is saying, in other words, why is he still being persecuted if he's preaching circumcision? Because circumcision was popular in Paul's time and day. It was because it played on people's pride and it was about what the individual could do and what what man and woman could do. And so the gospel that Christ has done, what we cannot do, is offensive to many people because it's about what Christ has done. And we don't like that because we like to take some part in our salvation or whatever it is. We're prideful people. And our culture is like that. Our culture doesn't oftentimes doesn't understand the gospel because our culture is so self-sufficient and individualistic and we think there's something we must do to contribute to our salvation. And Paul is saying there's not. And also he's saying if he is pro-circumcision, why is he still being persecuted? And of course, Paul is not pro-circumcision. Paul is pro-grace. He's preaching the gospel of grace. And so that was offensive to many people. And he goes on to in verse 12 and says, those who are causing harm, those who are spreading this false teaching throughout the church, he wishes that they would emasculate themselves. And what Paul is talking about here is the cutting off of the male private parts. He's using bold language to make his point. And this was not uncommon in Paul's day to use bold language like this to make a point. And so what Paul is saying is that he would prefer these false teachers be cut off, be separated from the church for the harm, for the threat that they're posing to the gospel of grace, for the freedom that Christians have through faith in Christ. And so what we see here in these middle verses that we have this group of people that are restricting the church's freedom, these Christians' freedom in Christ. They're restricting them from living as free people by saying, there's something else you must do to be in good standing with God. And so that's the reason it's difficult to live, oftentimes, as free people, because we have folks that say, there's something else you must do in order to earn God's forgiveness. And so we must be on guard against those who say we must keep the law to remain in good standing with God. It's a wrong teaching. It's completely opposed to the gospel of grace. And we may have friends that believe this and tell you, God doesn't love you if you don't keep his word perfectly. God's not going to love you. Or maybe you even think this yourself, and you think that, you know, I've got to keep all of God's Word, I've got to keep all of His law for God to love me and accept me. And if I mess up just one day, or just for one minute of the day, then God doesn't love me. And this is oftentimes how we functionally live as Christians, and we think that if we're not following God's Word perfectly, then God doesn't love us. And so we cannot let this type of thinking infiltrate our churches and influence our churches because too much is at stake. The gospel of grace must be defended, it must be preached, and that's what Paul's doing here in this letter to the Galatians. Because if we don't defend the gospel of grace, that we are made righteous by faith in Christ and nothing else, then all of our churches end up being just a bunch of religious folks resting in our own goodness and trying to work our way into heaven. And so Paul is reminding us that if we have put our faith and our trust in Christ that our sins are paid for. And we are set free from the guilt and the penalty and the burden of the law. So if we've been set free, then what are we to do with this freedom we have? We hear all this talk about the law and we think maybe it means the law is not important. The law doesn't have a place in our lives. It doesn't have a role in our lives because it's easy to read this passage and come away thinking that. We've been set free in Christ. What's the point of following God's Word? I can do whatever I want to now. I can live however I want to. So Paul knows this. Paul knows the heart of man and woman. He knows human nature. He knows his own nature. And so Paul says, Paul anticipates this thinking in the church there, and he says in verse 13, he warns them, he says, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. And this word opportunity that Paul uses here is a military term, meaning a base of operations or a starting point. And so in other words, what Paul is saying is, he's saying don't let your freedom be a starting point, a base of operations to fulfill your sinful desires. Don't abuse your freedom. Don't misuse the freedom you have in Christ to satisfy your own selfish and sinful desires. Because if we abuse our freedom by sinning, we're not really free at all. We're a slave to our sinful desires. And Jesus even says this back in John chapter 8. He says, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. And so what are we to do then if we are not to indulge our sinful desires? What are we to do? How are we to live as Christians? We've been set free in Christ. We're not justified by how well we follow God's word, but it seems like God's law still has a place in our lives. And Paul goes on in verse 14 to tell us, he says, the law is fulfilled, it's completed by loving our neighbor as yourself. This is the second greatest commandment after loving the Lord God. And so what we see here in this last section of our text this morning is that the law still applies. God's word still applies to our lives today. Scripture is still relevant for our lives today. The thing is, it doesn't justify us. God's Word and how well we follow it doesn't justify us. Christ has already done that. He's already done that in His person and work on the cross, in His life. But if we have put our faith in Christ At the same time, God's Word is still relevant for our lives. And we follow God's Word, we seek to follow God's Word as we're empowered by the Holy Spirit as a response to the grace given to us through Christ. And so we're still not to murder, we're not to slander, we're not to covet, we're not to steal, we're not to bear false witness. And all the things contained in the Ten Commandments still apply to us today as Christians. But the thing is, they don't justify us before God, they are a response, following God's Word is a response to the grace given to us in Christ. And we see it in Christ suffering at the cross that this is a true picture of that sacrificial neighbor love that Paul is getting at here. And so what it means for us today is as we follow God's word as a response to the grace given to us, we are to sacrificially serve those around us, our neighbors. And our neighbors could be, it could be the person that lives across the street from us, it could be the person that lives next to us, it could be really anyone that we come into contact with and that's in need, that is our neighbor. And so as we think about this this morning, how this applies to us as God's people, God, we think about it like this, God has placed all of us in spheres of influence. Places where we have influence, places where we've spent, where we spend a lot of our time, those are places of influence where God has placed us. And so that could be in our neighborhoods, like I just mentioned a few moments ago, that could be in our city, that could be our place of work and where we go to work every day, it could be our family, it could be the school we attend, it could be a sports team we play on, it could be some sort of extracurricular activity that we're involved with. Basically, wherever you spend a lot of your time at, that's a place of influence. as a Christian, where God's placed you. And in these places, we can sacrificially serve and love those around us by not murdering, not committing adultery, by not stealing, not wanting what they have, not slandering them, and instead, sacrificially serving the people that God's placed you around. And as we do this, we're living in the way that God created us to be, because we were not created to hurt people, to take from others, to be hateful and critical to one another. But instead, we're to sacrificially serve and love those around us as Christ sacrificially loved us at the cross. In verse 15, Paul says, we're not to bite and devour one another, and we're not to have hateful talk and actions coming from our mouths, and not to harm one another. And really, especially when Christians and churches get into petty conflicts and fighting within the Christian community, it really hurts our witness to the world around us. And so Paul says, don't let these things devour and bite you. Instead, love and serve those around you in the places where God has placed us. And so what we see as we come away from this, this section of the text this morning, we see that God's word, his law still has a place in our lives. The thing is, it just doesn't justify us. Only faith in Christ and what he's done on our behalf is what justifies us before God. We're made right through our faith in Christ. And so we follow, instead we follow God's law out of thankfulness and gratitude for what Christ has done on our behalf. And so we seek to follow his word out of the grace given to us. It's a response to God's grace. And so God's law still applies to us today. And so even though we've been set free, we have the freedom though to love and serve each other as we seek to follow God's word as a response to the grace given to us. And so all of this is possible, we've been set free in Christ from the penalty and the burden of the law because of what Christ has done on our behalf. And what is it that Christ has done for us? What Christ has done for us reminds me of an old episode of the Andy Griffith Show that I've watched a number of times. Some years I grew up watching the old black and white reruns. And this was the episode titled Opie the Birdman. And if you've seen this episode, you may be familiar with it. Opie gets a new slingshot. And it's given to him. And he's in his yard shooting rocks at various things. And he aims it up in a tree and shoots a rock up there and actually hits Mother Bird. She had three little baby birds in the tree in the nest. And of course, the bird falls to the ground dead. Opie's upset. He runs inside. He feels bad about what he's done. He knows his dad's probably going to be upset with him when he gets home later that night. And so Andy comes home later that day. He sees the bird in the yard, and he's kind of wondering, putting two and two together, thinking, oh, Opie just got a new slingshot. There's a dead bird in the yard. And so he questions Opie about it. And Opie eventually confesses to doing it. He feels bad about it. And of course, Andy tells him it's his responsibility now to raise these three little baby birds on his own since he killed the mother. And so Opie goes on to do this, and the birds grow older, and as they grow older, Andy begins to talk to Opie about setting them free. And Andy knew that these birds didn't need to be constrained and burdened by living in a cage all their lives. He knew they were created to live outside in nature. And that wasn't the way God had created them to live in this cage, restricted there. And so, Annie eventually convinces Opie to set him free and let him go, and Opie reluctantly does this and sends them back outside, back into nature. And so, later on that day, as the episode's closing, Opie and Annie are sitting there talking, and they hear the birds outside, and they're in the trees, and they're singing. And Opie says to his daddy, he says, it sure is quiet without those birds around. And Annie says, yes, son, it sure is, but don't the trees seem nice and full? And so what was going on here is these birds were fulfilling their purpose. As Opie had set them free and let them out of their cage to go back and live in nature, he had set them free to live as they were created to live. And they were no longer constrained by living in that cage. And that's the same thing with the gospel of grace and what Christ has done. What Paul is talking about here in Galatians 5 this morning is that we have been set free. We have been set free through faith in Christ to live in the way we were created to live before sin entered the world. We have been set free to live as God's people in the world where God has placed us. And we're free from the penalty and the guilt of the law. And Christ has taken that penalty. He's taken that burden on himself at the cross. So we don't have to, so we don't have to suffer that punishment. And instead, because we've been set free, we've been set free to live in a way that God has created us to live. To love and serve our neighbors in the places where God has placed us. And this is all made possible because of Jesus Christ. Christ, who has taken that burden upon himself and suffered in our place, suffered the punishment that we really deserve for our sin. Christ has taken that upon himself. He set us free if we are trusting and putting our faith in Christ. And as we've been set free, we are set free to live as God's people in the world where God has placed us. Let me pray for us now. Father, we thank you for your Word this morning. We thank you that you have set us free, you have set us free in Christ. And so, for those here this morning, who know this and who have put their faith in Christ, that you would remind us of the freedom we have in Christ, that we would not abuse that freedom, and instead we would use that freedom to love and serve those around us in the places where you've placed us. Lord, for those who don't know you this morning, we do pray that you would reveal yourself to them, that you would reveal the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus. It's in His name we pray. Amen.