It Is for Freedom That Christ Has Set Us Free
June 21, 2015 · Galatians
Scripture referenced 6 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Psalm 77 Opening verse: 'O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you?'
1 My cry goes to God! Indeed, I cry to God for help, and for him to listen to me.
2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. My hand was stretched out in the night, and didn’t get tired. My soul refused to be comforted.
3 I remember God, and I groan. I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. Selah.
4 You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I can’t speak.
5 I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.
6 I remember my song in the night. I consider in my own heart; my spirit diligently inquires:
7 “Will the Lord reject us forever? Will he be favorable no more?
8 Has his loving kindness vanished forever? Does his promise fail for generations?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he, in anger, withheld his compassion?” Selah.
10 Then I thought, “I will appeal to this: the years of the right hand of the Most High.”
11 I will remember Yah’s deeds; for I will remember your wonders of old.
12 I will also meditate on all your work, and consider your doings.
13 Your way, God, is in the sanctuary. What god is great like God?
14 You are the God who does wonders. You have made your strength known among the peoples.
15 You have redeemed your people with your arm, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
16 The waters saw you, God. The waters saw you, and they writhed. The depths also convulsed.
17 The clouds poured out water. The skies resounded with thunder. Your arrows also flashed around.
18 The voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind. The lightnings lit up the world. The earth trembled and shook.
19 Your way was through the sea; your paths through the great waters. Your footsteps were not known.
20 You led your people like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
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Keep this verse
Psalm 16:11
Quoted after a song: 'you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.'
11 You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
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Galatians 5:1
Covered as benediction the prior week, included again as opening command: stand firm and do not submit to a yoke of slavery
1 Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
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Galatians 5:2-15
Main text of the sermon
2 Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.
3 Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
4 You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.
5 For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.
7 You were running well! Who interfered with you that you should not obey the truth?
8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you.
9 A little yeast grows through the whole lump.
10 I have confidence toward you in the Lord that you will think no other way. But he who troubles you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
11 But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been removed.
12 I wish that those who disturb you would cut themselves off.
13 For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
15 But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
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Galatians 5:16-24
Referenced as next week's passage on works of the flesh and fruit of the spirit
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness,
20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies,
21 envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,
23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
24 Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
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Galatians 5:25-26
Added to the sermon as closing verses: keep in step with the spirit, do not become conceited
25 If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
26 Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Pastor Mark opened Galatians 5:1-15 by framing the whole letter as a passionate, urgent sketch of the same argument Paul makes more formally in Romans: that Christ sets people free, and that freedom runs along a narrow path between two ditches, legalism on one side and license on the other. The sermon moved through Paul's commands, cautions, clarifications, and warnings in order, pressing the same question from several angles.
What was said
To set up the passage, Pastor Mark described the series as a journey through the New Testament in the order the books were written. The Thessalonians had received the gospel and were running well. The Corinthians had drifted into license, feeling free to sin because they were saved. The Galatians had overcorrected in the opposite direction, being pressured by Judaizing teachers to take up the law of Moses as a requirement for salvation. Paul writes to pull them back to the center.
Verse one carries two commands: stand firm, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Neither the ditch of legalism nor the ditch of sin is where Christ intends his people to walk. Paul describes this center as the "Gospel Highway," a path of freedom that is neither license nor law.
Paul's cautions in verses two and three are blunt. Accepting circumcision as a requirement means agreeing to keep the entire law, all 613 commandments built around the ten. It means setting Christ aside, treating his grace as insufficient. The Judaizers were demanding that Gentile Christians add a covenant sign to their faith, and Paul says that choice severs a person from grace entirely.
The clarifications that follow spell out what Christians are actually doing instead. Through the Spirit, by faith, they are eagerly waiting for God to make them righteous, trusting the process to him rather than trying to manufacture it themselves. What counts in Christ is not circumcision or uncircumcision but, as Paul puts it, faith working through love. Jesus himself summarized the commandments as loving God and loving your neighbor, and that summary, Pastor Mark noted, is exactly what Paul comes back to.
The challenge in verse seven asks who cut in on the Galatians while they were running well, or who tore up the road in front of them, both images drawn from the same Greek word for hindering. Paul stops short of naming the person responsible, saying only that the persuasion did not come from the God who called them, and that a little false teaching, like leaven, works its way through the whole batch. He expresses confidence that the Galatians will reject it, and warns that whoever is troubling them will bear the penalty.
For the first time in the letter, Paul turns from warning against legalism to warning against the other ditch. "Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh," he writes, then immediately repeats the command to serve one another through love, because the whole law is fulfilled in one word: love your neighbor as yourself. The section closes with a sharp warning that congregations that bite and devour one another end up consuming themselves.
Pastor Mark closed by pairing verse 15 with verse 26, where Paul urges the Galatians not to become conceited, provoking one another or envying one another. He described conceit here as having delusions of grandeur, either about yourself, which leads to provoking others, or about someone else, which leads to envy. Both are ways of losing the center. Keeping in step with the Spirit, he said, means neither running ahead of God nor dragging behind, but letting faith work itself out through actual love toward the people around you.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Pastor Mark described Galatians as a passionate sketch for Romans, saying Paul keeps making the same point from many different angles. What point do you think Paul most wants the Galatians to hear, and why do you think it was so hard for them to accept it?
- Paul warns that accepting circumcision as a requirement means taking on the obligation of the whole law, and that doing so cuts a person off from grace. How do you see the same temptation showing up today, where people add requirements to what Christ has already done?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 6,886 words
0:00
Speaker 2Hey. Good morning, church family. Beautiful beautiful morning. Wouldn't you wouldn't you say? I I think so, anyway.
0:08
This is our new decor right around here. It's for Vacation Bible School. That's coming up. You'll hear more about that. But we just wanna say good morning to you.
0:18
Welcome to First Bee. Let me start with a verse here. Psalm 77. O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you?
0:28
And I would ask this the same question. Is there any god as as mighty as our God? Shall we praise him this morning? Let's stand together. We'll sing of his holiness.
3:10
Let me pray. Lord, we are grateful for another day. Thank you for breath in our lungs. Thank you for beautiful days such as this, and I thank you for this place. Whether we're living here or just visiting here, it is a gorgeous place.
3:25
All thy works shall praise thy name, and indeed they do. We look around and we see the evidence of your hand, your creation. You spoke us into existence. There's none like you, and so we acknowledge your presence here with us. We give you thanks, and I pray that you'd ready our hearts to worship you.
3:43
In Jesus' name, Amen. You can have a seat. Okay. Well,
3:48
Speaker 1welcome. I'm glad y'all are here. Like Carl said, whether you're whether you're here because this is home or because you're just traveling and you're a junkie for Jesus and you're in church this morning, we're glad that you're here. I've got a few announcements. First of all, there's a discovery class.
4:02
We do this the third Sunday of each month. It's in my office. Although, it looks like a bomb blew up in there right now. There's a discovery class that's going between services. It's in my office with Gary Geek.
4:13
He's right over there. Would you stand up and wave, Gary? This is Gary. He may have greeted you coming in this morning and he knows about this church and if you'd like to be a part of this church or think you might like to be a part of this church on a more official basis, would you just go meet with Gary and we all talk about you. You'll talk about this church and that's one of the steps kind of towards membership.
4:34
So, it's a good one. Discovery class at ten. That's between service. Now, Monday nights at first be normally, every Monday night, you know that right here down the hall in the fellowship hall, actually, if you look on the map right there on Kelly and Glenwood is where Monday nights at first B happens but this Monday night, this Monday night only, you take that little red line and go Kelly Avenue North which is that way. No, east.
4:59
Sorry. That which is that way. To Mike Yochel Park and we're gonna have meal music and Mike Yochel this Monday night. So, tomorrow night, Just a meal. Just a meal.
5:09
No music.
5:10
Speaker 2Meal and Mike Yockel.
5:11
Speaker 1Okay, meal and Mike Yockel sounds good. We'll leave Mike. That sounds good. That's what I know about it. G Force, this is the Bible school that we have decorated.
5:22
That's what's going on here. Monday through Friday this week, this is God's love in action, G Force Bible School. It's finally here. Starts nine to twelve about 90 something of y'all have already maybe more have already registered, preregistered. So, thank you for that.
5:37
There will be a lot of kids here and a lot of volunteers here tomorrow. So, 9AM to twelve noon, five days, Monday through Friday this week and if you grab the donation slip for this week, this VBS from the back table back there, please bring in those supplies and I say, Asap because Krista says, everything that doesn't come in, she's going to go by mid afternoon today. So, if you bought something that's been sitting on the kitchen table at home, please bring it in and let Krista know about it this afternoon we've got a couple of things that are weird announcements this morning, different announcements. Rachel, who is Jack and Bev Babcock's granddaughter is going to serve in South Asia for the next year. This is a picture of her.
6:16
She's granddaughter. So, she's not here all of the time but we want to be praying for her. We're one of the churches that has agreed that we'll be praying for her serving in this area somewhere in here. They don't want to be too terribly specific. After the earthquake in Nepal though, there's been a lot that they are trying to help out with.
6:34
She's going with International Mission Board, the Southern Baptist Convention to South Asia for the next year. Would you pray for her, Rachel? Jeff, Jack, and Bev Babcock's granddaughter. I'll remind you again and we want to welcome into this world too. Annie Marie, Christy Graham.
6:48
She was born the July 16, seven pounds, ten ounces, twenty one and a half inches long, and to Christy and Forrest, if y'all don't know Christy and Forrest, this is a picture you've been seeing em here but this is Annie Marie. Welcome them in. I have, I was sent this by Dave and Pam Myers. The information is available all up in the park. So, I just want to remind you on a beautiful day like today, this not something where I expect you to be here every single Sunday all the time.
7:14
When you see weather like this and you want to go, there are services up in the park. A Christian ministry in the national parks. We have these folks at Signal Mountain Campground. They do these services and they're kind of a part of this fellowship. So, if you would like to, just pick one of those services up there sometime and next, we have Turning Point, Shelly Donahue is going to be the speaker this year, July 16.
7:38
There's still some underwriting opportunities available to help out this pregnancy resource center. This is all in the bulletin. Today, we are having a time of a Spanish service at 01:30. I haven't been advertising this one lately, but at 01:30 in the afternoon, every Sunday, we do this. And check your bulletin.
8:00
I think that that's it. Is that it? Video. We have a video because it's Father's Day. You will not hear Father's Day in the sermon because I forget about stuff like that.
8:08
I am a father and I'm grateful for y'all fathers. Keep on keeping on. Take take your charge seriously but would you stand? No. Not yet.
8:17
We still got a video. I love this part of the service. This is my favorite part of the service. Alright. After we have the video, y'all can stand and greet one another.
13:28
Speaker 2God, I know that what you're really asking for is for our for our hearts, and I pray that, we would kinda loosen the grip and and soften up and just allow you in. Sometimes we're guarded, and I pray that, you'd continue to soften us. And and we confess we are prone to wander, but I thank you, God, that there you are with open arms. And, I pray God if if if if we're wandering, if if we're if we've been kind of apart doing our own thing apart from you, I pray that you'd you'd gently steer us back. I thank you, God, that it is your your kindness that leads us to repentance.
14:15
I thank you that your ways are higher, your ways are greater, and I pray that we would give ourselves to you. In Jesus name. Amen. And, Lord, my life is an empty cup. And here's my heart.
14:43
Won't you fill me up? Face to I'm yours forevermore. And all I want, all just to be with you. Be where I am at your feet. Just to be with you, just to be From Psalm sixteen eleven, you make known to me the path of life.
17:45
In your presence, there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Let's pray together on that. God, I thank you that you are indeed the greatest treasure we can ever have, and you are. You give, Lord, what what the world really can't.
18:06
You give a a peace, a joy, and so much more that starts on the inside. Outwardly, we can we can dabble. We can get into anything and and be, I guess, temporarily amused, but eternal pleasures are at your right hand. And I I just pray that you would give us you'd continually give us that eternal perspective. And as we enter here in the worship of giving and and we're giving of our tithes and offerings and all those things that it wouldn't just be again, I I I say it a lot, but it wouldn't just be a few bucks in the plate, but we would be putting ourselves in there.
18:47
And then we would be living our lives with an open hand to you, not closed off, not with a hard heart, not, no, this is me and mine, but we would say, God, this this is yours. Everything comes from you, and so I'm giving. I'm giving back. I'm gonna give generously. I'm gonna give joyfully.
19:05
And it's amazing God that everything that we can get, we can't out give you. We just cannot out give you. And whatever we give, you're giving back. But I pray that we wouldn't even focus on that, that right now our joy would just be to give to you. And not just here in this offering, but throughout the week that we've been giving ourselves, laying our ourselves down for one another because that's what you did for us.
19:32
I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Y'all can be seated.
21:15
Speaker 1Thank you, Florine. Galatians five, this is what we're up to and I covered verse one kind of as a benediction last week but I think I think it fits better actually with last week's message. It kinda caps off the teaching of the last part of chapter four but I'm gonna include it again. So, it's two through 15 is the main focus of the sermon but one is so good. It deserves double coverage, alright?
21:38
We'll do that but before I get started, I want to mention something. I'm I I mentioned art last week and I haven't done that in a while and it was kind of funny when I when I mentioned it but yesterday, I went to the Plein Air Painting Festival at the National Museum of Wildlife Art which was great. This is Bill Sawchuck if any of you all know him. He was out by between the museum and the highway painting the museum. There were, I don't know, probably about 30 artists.
22:04
I don't know exactly how many, 30, maybe 35 artists that were there and they set up their little easels and they had their most of them were oil painters. Some of them had acrylics. It dries so fast. It's hard to do that outside. But oil painting, there were a couple of folks that were doing more modern pieces.
22:21
This is a painting of a sculpture that was out there in the sculpture garden but had to be moved, so you can't see what it is she's painting. She's painting something there. This lady was painting looking towards Sleeping Indian. You can see right up here. And the guy's kinda looking at her, which is funny.
22:37
She's looking at the landscape, and he's looking at her. But that's what they invited everybody to do, to come out and experience this. Now this reason that I put this up here is because if you'll notice right down here, and she's the only one that I noticed doing this. She had a sketch below her piece of the artwork. So, the sketch down here was something that she did at the very beginning.
22:58
It was preliminary and she boxed it off with pencil lines and then she did the landscape so that she could see it. Come what may, weather, change, whatever. She still knows what was there. The sketch is that impression, that beginning impression that you start off with and I would go a step further than that. When I was in art school and Tanya was in art school, we had life drawing classes and these life drawing classes was interesting for us because we went, we're studying, and one day, we go into class and we're drawing, you know, buildings or we're drawing fruit or whatever and then the next day, we're doing life drawing of naked people and while we were doing that, that that was, okay, that's a bit of a shock for me.
23:41
So, anyway, as we were as we were doing that, that's fine. The next day, so it's, you know, Tanya's here. I'm here. Michelle's there. Missy's there.
23:49
And then the next day, and we're students. All of us are students. And the next day, we come in and Tanya's there. I'm here. And then Michelle is there.
23:56
That's really strange for me. One of our fellow students but what they were asking us to do that day was do gesture drawings, immediate gesture drawings of the of the form of the person and they even invited one of the guys into the class and I remember him naked, taking a towel, and flapping it like this. And we were to draw a gesture drawing of what was going on there. And that was a little interesting, like I said for me. The point of a sketch or the point of a gesture drawing especially is to get the the motion, the idea of what's going on there.
24:30
It helps a lot when you're trying to draw somebody in a more sustained pose. At that time, you're trying trying to draw somebody in a more sustained pose. A lot of times, they end up looking weird because you don't have the gesture right. You don't have the the quick thing. So so to change the analogy completely from somebody who is an art background guy to some of y'all who are shooters.
24:52
Y'all are people who shoot guns. If you shoot guns have you ever heard of impulse shooting? Anybody? Come on. Yeah.
24:59
Impulse shooting. Two gals raise their hand. Okay. Impulse shooting is the old John Wayne style or the rifleman style where something goes on over there and you just turn and shoot. And and you have a good a better chance of hitting it they say.
25:15
My dad was in Vietnam and he said, impulse shooting is what they train them to trust. Their instincts when that that sort of thing. You just kind of go for it. Immediately, you got a better chance. Sometimes, when you aim, you're getting your breathing right, all that kind of stuff is not competition.
25:29
It's a little different. I am going to say that Galatians is a sketch for Romans. It is an incredibly passionate sketch for Romans and we'll get to Romans before too long. We have to go through second Corinthians to get there but Galatians has everything in it that Romans has in it but it's got a little more passion. You know, when you're sketching and you draw, it's like this.
25:50
You're drawing a circle to get the main form but you've gone over and over. Your lines are a little bit wider and then you refine that, refine that. Romans, no doubt is the masterpiece of Paul. No doubt, everybody. Magnum Opus is Romans but Galatians is a very passionate sketch.
26:05
He knows the Galatians. He knows them very well. And this is today's sermon. This is why I said all this about the passionate sketch. He goes all over the map but he's saying the same thing over and over again in a way.
26:19
Have you ever been in an argument argument with someone where they make all of their points and they're all good points and you just go, okay. Okay. Okay. If you're a Galatian, I have been. Tanya's really good at this.
26:31
She's she's almost always right. I will give her that. She's almost always right. So, when we get into something and she said, but look at it this way and look at it this way and look at it this way and look at it this way and I say, you know what? You're right.
26:42
It's not like I was resisting but having it shown from so many different angles. That's what Paul does. So, in this, he has a couple of commands to start out. That's verse one. He ended with those last week.
26:53
A couple of cautions for us, a few clarifications, a challenge, and then there's a conundrum and I say that. It's just a conundrum. It's really him going back. Why in the world would they even say that in the first place? A cutting exclamation and then a couple more commands.
27:10
That's what we're going to go through at a pretty good clip, I pray. So, couple of commands. First one says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Another way of saying that, Tom Fuller from Calvary Chapel paraphrases this this way. Christ has set us free so that we can live as free people.
27:31
A few weeks ago, when Doug Walkup did his message, he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself and then do what you want. That's the freedom that Christ allows. Love God and love people but then do what you want. He has made us to be free.
27:47
Not entrapped in legalism and not ensnared in sin but free to walk this path. Hey, this is a great visual. Path right down the center. Gospel Highway there. The next part of the verse has two imperatives.
28:03
If you just say, okay, it's for Christ that it's for freedom that Christ has set us free and then he gives two commands, two imperatives, a couple commands are this, stand firm therefore, right here in the center of the highway. Stand firm. And do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Not there into legalism and not there into sin. So, that's what we close with last week.
28:30
Stand firm in God's grace and do not submit again to slavery on either side. How you should hold on to that freedom is what he's going to go into right now and he gives a couple of cautions. I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. Paul knew as a good Jew, he knew that circumcision was a seal of the covenant that God had made with Abraham. It was a seal of the covenant that Mosaic Law took up and said, this is the seal that we are going to follow this rule.
29:04
Follow this law. Follow this life and so Paul is saying, if you're going to take that seal and you're going to agree to that contract, you are setting Christ aside. He's already said this multiple times in this book. He's saying it again. I say to you and he says, I, Paul, say to you, lot of people think he actually wrote this letter.
29:22
Usually, he uses a scribe that he would dictate to like a transcriptionist. He would dictate to but he says it right here. I, Paul, in great big letters, say this to you, that if you accept circumcision from those who are telling you that you must, you must, you must, Christ will be of no advantage to you. You're going for it. Hook, line, and sinker.
29:42
That's not true and you're going for it and then he says again, I testify again that everyone who accepts circumcision then he's obligated to the whole law. That's a couple of cautions. Have you read the law? Have you read the law that they're talking about? 613 different rules based on the 10 commandments but hedged, hedged, hedged, Says, every man who accepts circumcision, he's obligated to keep that whole law.
30:06
He's choosing to take the path of law and not of grace. So, what he's basically saying, Harold is, do not kowtow to the Judaizers. This is an old, I don't know if you've heard. I thought it was actually a western term, kowtow with a little c. But kowtow is to bend prostrate before and lay your head down before the masters.
30:27
And this is a Chinese thing, kowtow with a k. And Paul said, don't do that to the Judaizers. Please don't do that. They don't deserve that kind of respect. What they're teaching is actually heresy.
30:39
Don't do that. Don't accept it and then he adds a few clarifications. You are severed from Christ. There's a lot of cutting analogy actually in this passage too. That's just the way he wrote it.
30:52
I'm going to present it the way he wrote it. You are severed from Christ. You who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. What is being offered is, like he said last week, the Hagar and Sarah.
31:04
You've got Hagar of law and you've got Sarah of promise and grace. He says, you've fallen away from the side of grace when you accept that. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't cut yourself off from the grace of God because it's the only thing that saves.
31:20
Do you get that? Are you with me? Amen. He's clarifying further. Amen.
31:24
This is good. Good seat for you too. For through the spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. This is what he's saying. He's saying, we, Christians, are eagerly waiting eagerly waiting for God to sanctify us, eagerly waiting for him to make us right.
31:45
We are open to however he would change us through his word, through his people, through his urging, through his Holy Spirit. Through the spirit, by faith, we ourselves are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness but we've come past the point of thinking we can do it ourselves. We eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. Now, this is absolutely against what the Judaizers were teaching.
32:16
It's absolutely against what the Jews had been promoting for thousand years. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything and then he follows it up this way. He's saying, one is not better than the other in Christ. In Christ, one is not better than the other but only faith working its way through love. Jesus commanded what?
32:42
He summarized the instead of adding and hedging the commandments to make em more and more and more laborious to follow. Jesus summarized the 10 into two and he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Through faith, but only faith working through love. That's what matters in Christ. It does matter about the faith part.
33:06
It does have to be in Christ. That's the only way. We love why. John says, because he first loved us. Faith working through love is what matters.
33:16
It doesn't matter circumcised, uncircumcised. Only faith working through love. Get it. This is a spiritual thing. Last week, I showed a statue of this guy and I was very careful to say how I had turned him in such an appropriate pose.
33:33
This is a sketch of the dying Gaul or the dying Galatian. And last week, I put up this portrait that I'd so artfully covered him. But I didn't think about the folks behind him, and several of y'all called the church office this week. So, there you go. Sorry about that but this is the one that I was going to show.
34:02
It's interesting that the dying Galatian is what it is. It's a very, like I said, it's it is it has all that passion of a gesture drawing but it's very very well contrived. It it's something that this guy is obviously in pain and obviously dying, and we might think, well, it's a classical sculpture. That's why he's nude. No.
34:22
These Galatians were fierce people. This is a metal torque that they wore around their neck. It was sometimes twisted in place metal, twisted in place, and sealed, brazed, welded shut in on their neck, and that's the only thing they wore into battle. Their weaponry and that torque was it. Paul is saying, y'all are tougher than this, people.
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Don't take that. Don't take that. Don't try to cover yourself so much. Don't worry so much about em. So, here's the challenge.
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You were running well. Another thing and there's a lot of nudity in this sermon. I'm sorry. But Paul said it. You were running well.
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The Olympics at the time were naked. Paul, as a Jew, would never go to those things, but he uses it in like five or six books. He's been to these sporting events. He knows about it. He understands and he sees this as a metaphor for life.
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He says, you are running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? Who has hindered you from obeying the truth right here? Actually, there are two different ways of looking at this hindered. One of them is, who cut you off in the race?
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Have you all ever been watching the Olympics and somebody takes the step and they step around somebody and then they they trip them and they fall? That's one way. Cutting in on you. That's one way. The other is though, and the word hindered oftentimes in classical and in Koine Greek, is used for tearing up a road or a bridge that keeps people from getting where they're going.
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It's a warfare term. So it's what do you do? You destroy the bridge. Bridge over the River Kwa. All of this stuff.
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It's about tearing down that bridge, that pathway, so that they can't get their supplies or whatever. It's tearing them. So who cut in on you while you're racing, or who tore up the path in front of you to keep you from running well? Paul knows who it is. It's the Judaizers but he doesn't know exactly who it is.
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He said, this persuasion is not from him who calls you. It's not from Jesus. He's not laying that out and say, yes, you can accept salvation by my blood but then you gotta do the rest on your own. He's not saying that. This is not the persuasion of him who called you, said my blood, my grace is sufficient for you.
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If you will yield your life, I will be sanctifying and cleaning you up. You can eagerly await righteousness because he who started a good work in you is faithful to keep it going until the day I come back. This is not the persuasion of him who calls you. Then he goes back to another favorite reference, a little leaven. Leavens the whole lump.
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This leaven representing sin in a lot of places, righteousness in one other place. But right here, it's representing false teaching. It doesn't take much false teaching. It doesn't take much heresy to mix with the truth to make it all heresy. Don't let this go.
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Don't let this go. Don't go for it. I have confidence in the Lord, Paul says to them, that you will take no other view and that the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. He's not specific about it. I think he didn't know the guy's name.
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I think he didn't know who it was. I think he probably would have called him out. I have confidence in the Lord that you, Galatians, will take no other view. You will see from this great argument that has been presented for you of the truth that you will take no other view and that the one who is troubling you or the group of people who are troubling you will bear the penalty whoever it is. Now, I I have because I stand up here every Sunday.
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This is my job. James says, not let many of you be teachers. There's a higher standard for people who are, I mean, If I'm up here in front of 200 people and I'm spouting something and expounding it to be God's truth and you're seeking to live your lives modeled after God's truth and then I've told you something that's not true. I'm going to bear the penalty of that. That's part of taking this job.
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I I do it with fear and trembling whoever that is. That's the way that that goes. Blank slide. The conundrum. The conundrum, Paul is saying all that.
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I feel like he got to the end of a thought and then he immediately jumps back into something he's been saying throughout this book but if brothers, I still preach circumcision. Why am I still being persecuted? That didn't make any sense at all. Do you get this? He's he's just going, you tell me.
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If I'm preaching circumcision, which is what the Judaizers were saying, Paul believes this too. Paul believes this too. He's like, no,
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Speaker 2I don't.
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Speaker 1That's crazy. If I'm still preaching circumcision, why am I being persecuted? Why have I been pushed to the outside? Why is it that I get beat up everywhere I go? Yeah, am I, are you with me?
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I know it's confusing. I know there are bunch of things in here. Are you with me? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. That message of the cross is what Paul always sticks to.
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Right here in the center of humanity, human times, Christ died. He lived a perfect life. He died a perfect death and it is by faith in Jesus Christ that you may be saved. There is no other name given among heaven or on earth, just Jesus. He is the way.
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It is an exclusive gospel and that in itself especially in a pluralistic society like here and like there, that's offensive and I get that but Paul saying, if I preach anything else than that, then the offense of the cross has been removed. Are you with me? Alright. The cutting exclamation, the very next line. In the English standard version, they capture it pretty well.
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JB Lightfoot is the guy who wrote the the book on Galatians. The the kind of definitive work on Galatians was written in 1865 by this English from Great Britain, English theologian, JB Lightfoot. He is not to be confused with Gordon Lightfoot. This Canadian musician. JB Lightfoot's section on this passage is really, really powerful, I thought.
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I'm I'm not going to read it, but he wrote about this this verse, the twelfth verse. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. He just wrote masterfully on this this little part. He's saying that the guys who are saying to you that you need to be circumcised, he said, I wish they just take the knife and cut themselves off. I do not want for this to reproduce.
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I do not want for this to go on. This is not true and that's that sounds like bold words from Paul. It is. It's really, really bold words but that's what he's saying. He's saying, this is something that is very, very, very dangerous and I wish that they just go the whole way.
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Okay. Thirteen and fourteen. For you are called to freedom. He's going back to that verse one, right? He's going back to freedom.
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He's reminding them again. For you are called to freedom, brothers, brothers and sisters, you are called to freedom and then, for the first time in a long time in this book and maybe the only time in this book, let me go into a digression right here on purpose. We have studied through, we're going through the New Testament. We studied John for the life of Jesus. We studied Acts for the life of the early church and then we started going in order, chronological order of when the books were written.
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Now, James, we studied, we could see the transitional nature of that book and he's going in and he's saying, you gotta really put your faith into practice. You really need to be doing this, folks. We went into first and second Thessalonians where the Thessalonians had accepted this gospel and they're spreading it like crazy and it's going very well. They are a good congregation of people who love Jesus and they don't have the same kind of problems that we'll see in first Corinthians. Thessalonians, he's saying, you're knocking it out of the park, you're doing great, you've asked me a couple of questions, and here are the answers to those questions.
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More power to you. The spirit is in you. Go for it. Thessalonians. First and second.
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Then, we got to first Corinthians. Oh my goodness. Sin, sin, sin, sin, sin everywhere. So, first Thessalonians, let's say when our analogy of where we're standing right here in the center. First Thessalonians are doing great.
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Second Thessalonians, doing great. Have a few questions. He answers a couple of em. First Corinthians, oh my goodness. First Corinthians have accepted the gospel but they've moved back over into this ditch.
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Remember the passage that says, such were some of you and he has this long list of sins and says, no, that's not you anymore. Such were some of you. So, first Corinthians is way over here in the license ditch, way over there where they've just gotta feel like they have a license to sin because they're saved. Then, we came to Galatians. They're falling way over into this ditch of legalism.
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They're way over here because people are trying to convince them that no, the Jewish way is the right way. You can't be a Christian without being a good Jew. Do you do you see where I'm coming from now? Galatians. Paul is saying it is for freedom.
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Now, the Thessalonians were taking the freedom that they received in Christ and go and tell other people about it because why? Because freedom is awesome. Freedom is incredible. When you have done either that or that, this is awesome. Living right here knowing that you can live your life, surrender to God.
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It's fantastic and it's fun. It's good. Does it mean you won't have troubles? No. You'll have tons of troubles but you can
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Speaker 2get through em with Jesus. Amen.
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Speaker 1Amen. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. This is the first time in this book that Paul says, don't overcorrect though. Whatever you do coming from over there, you don't wanna be in this ditch either. Just try to stay right in the center of this pathway.
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This good gospel highway. Don't get over here. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity or even excuse. Some people translate it as an excuse for the flesh. In fact, he's saying freedom, you can think of it as liberty.
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Do not allow your liberty to turn into license where you feel like you can do anything you want to. You can do anything you want to. Jesus says, that's not good for you though and that's not good for you but freedom means that you have the opportunity to do either. Right here is where you're going to find yourself most complete in Christ. Through love, serve one another.
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He's hitting this note again. Does it sound like anybody else we've heard? Yes. All throughout the gospel of John, all throughout Acts, we we heard about loving and serving one another. He's repeating that first verse again.
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For you are called to freedom, brothers, only don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Through love, serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. All of Pauline theology is grounded, very well grounded in dominical tradition, the traditions of our lord. And then one final closing warning.
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If you bite and devour one another, watch out. That's a command. If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you're not consumed by one another. Do you agree? When people are biting on each other, eventually, people get devoured, don't they?
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Do they turn away? Do they stop assembling themselves together and just find somewhere else and did they get better? Yes. Paul's given them a pretty solemn warning. If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you're not consumed by one another.
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Now, next week, we'll be in the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit and there that's a great kind of a contrasting message where you see the works of the flesh are evident but the fruit of the spirit is this and so you can see those two and I'll change my analogy altogether next week, probably. But works of the flesh and fruit of the spirit is next week. I'm going to add to this though. That's 16 through 24 is the works of flesh, fruit of the spirit. I'm going to add to this one through fifteen, two more verses and they're the closing verses of this chapter.
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Because I think he repeats what he's saying in 15 right there. If we live by the spirit, is that what we're supposed to be doing? According to this whole book, is that what we're supposed to be doing? Living by the Holy Spirit. Yes or no?
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Yes. So, if we live by the Holy Spirit, then let us also keep in step with the spirit. What is keeping in step mean? Not getting ahead of him like Hagar, Sarah, they're hatching that plan, getting ahead of him. Not getting behind him where he's saying, oh, no.
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That's not good for you. Doing it anyway? No. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceded, provoking one another, or envying one another.
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Now, I was meditating on this twenty sixth verse this week and it meant just digging through it, digging through the, you know, word study, all that sort of stuff and this hit me harder this week than ever before. Let us not become conceded, provoking one another or envying one another. Earlier in this book where the Galatians, he's talking about the Judaizers. He's saying, they make much of you so that you might make much of them. It is a spiritual pride that sets in and conceit is part of that spiritual pride.
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Conceited, we think of pride typically but studying that word even further, pride and conceit is a good way to look at it. I saw a definition that I thought just hit it. Do not have delusions of grandeur. Do not have delusions of grandeur about yourself. That's pride that we think of where we would provoke others.
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You should be like me because I'm where it's at. Right? Provoking others or envying the other thinking that you're where it's at. I want to be like you. Don't have delusions of grandeur about yourself or about others.
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You won't provoke or envy that way but everything's gotta be right here. Centered on Christ. The cross of Christ. The grace of God. The love of God.
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So, let us not become conceited provoking one another, envying one another and know that was all over the map. Would you stand with us? I'm going invite the band back up. We'll use the last couple of verses or the summarize the last verse as the benediction today. There's no takeaway slide for for Carl.
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Would you please ask God during this song? It's amazing grace is what we're going to sing. It's about the chains falling off. It's about being set free and not being enslaved anymore. Would you please ask God to bring you out of the ditch and into the center of the highway?
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If you feel like you are in one of em, you probably are.
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Speaker 2Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
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Speaker 1Amen. Now, okay, here's the benediction. Hey, y'all. Paul is saying it. It's to all of us.
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Hey, y'all. Can we make it our aim this week to keep in step with the spirit? Having no delusions of grandeur, not about ourselves, nor about anyone else, and one else, and by allowing our faith to work its way out through actual love. Could we serve one another in the community around us? Amen.
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Amen.
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