Set Free to Serve in Love

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Freedom and slavery—it is not too difficult to imagine the differences. Many of us are blessed to live in freedom: freedom to choose where we live, how we spend our time, what friends to have, and how to use our money. Some may feel like slaves at work, but freedom still prevails. Job changes, though they can be stressful, are common and monetary compensation is a necessity of life. Yet, what does God’s word say about our freedom in Christ?

The law of God justly condemns us all.

For example, what does it mean when Paul uses the word “freedom” in Galatians 5:13?

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Scripture teaches that those who are united to Christ Jesus by faith have freedom:

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5:1)

Freedom in Christ is not speaking about the kind of freedom we often think about—living in a free society. Rather, freedom in Christ is freedom from the bondage and slavery to the law—freedom from the condemnation the law brings to all of us as sinners against the law of God.

The law of God reveals our sinfulness. If anyone thinks they are free from sin, a simple comparison of a person’s life to the demands of the law of God quickly makes known the truth—the law of God justly condemns us all.

Christ has set believers free from sin’s condemnation.

Try as hard as we might, our slavery to sin—the very sin the law exposes—keeps us in bondage (John 8:34). But to those who believe in Christ Jesus and look to him alone for freedom, he has set us free from sin’s condemnation.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:1)

By his taking on a human body, living a perfectly sinless life, dying on the cross for those who believe in him, and being resurrected from the grave, Christ Jesus has set his people free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2). He did what we cannot do.

Freedom in Christ means freedom to love and serve.

Christ calls his people to freedom from the law’s just condemnation in order to serve each other through love (Gal. 5:13). Like the two great commandments declare, we are to love God and each other, even our enemies (Matt. 22:36-40; Matt. 5:44).

Freedom in Christ means freedom to love, freedom to serve, freedom to give up ourselves for the good of others and the glory of God! Sin no longer enslaves us, but through love in Christ Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit working through God’s word we are free to serve others. This is freedom in Christ.

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This article is adapted from “Freedom to Serve in Love” from Beautiful Christian Life’s July 2023 newsletter “Freedom in Christ.”

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