Ver. 26. +Not to be desirous of vainglory, provoking+ [challenging], +envying one another.+--Vaingloriousness provokes contention; contention produces envy. _MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verse_ 1. _Christian Liberty_-- +I. Should be valued considering how it was obtained.+--"The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." It is a liberty purchased at a great cost. Christ, the Son of God, became incarnated, suffered in a degree unparalleled and incomprehensible, and died the shameful and ignoble death of the crucified to win back the liberty man had forfeited by voluntary sin. The redemption of man was hopeless from himself, and but for the intervention of a competent Redeemer he was involved in utter and irretrievable bondage. Civil liberty, though the inalienable right of every man, has been secured as the result of great struggle and suffering. "With a great sum," said the Roman captain to Paul, "obtained I this freedom;" and many since his day have had to pay dearly for the common rights of citizenship. But Christian liberty should be valued as the choicest privilege, remembering it was purchased by the suffering Christ, and that it has been defended through the ages by a noble army of martyrs. +II. Should remind us of the oppression from which it delivers.+--"And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." The Galatians had been bondmen, enslaved by the worship of false and vile deities. If they rush into the snare of the legalists, they will be bondmen again, and their bondage will be the more oppressive now they have tasted the joys of freedom. Disobedience involves us in many entanglements. It is among the most potent of the energies of sin that leads astray by blinding and blinds by leading astray; that the soul, like the strong champion of Israel, must have its eyes put out, when it would be bound with fetters of brass and condemned to grind in the prisonhouse (Judg. xvi. 21). Redemption from the slavery of sin should fill the heart with gratitude. A wealthy and kind Englishman once bought a poor Negro for twenty pieces of gold. He presented him with a sum of money that he might buy a piece of land and furnish himself a home. "Am I really free? May I go whither I will?" cried the Negro in the joy of his heart. "Well, let me be your slave, massa; you have redeemed me, and I owe all to you." The gentleman took him into his service, and he never had a more faithful servant. How much more eagerly should we do homage and service to the divine Master, who Himself has made us free!