Warning! Don't Go!

Intro

In life we have many warnings. We often grow calloused to them.

Hot coffee on McDonalds cup

Lane change down the mountain

Check engine light

Tornado or flash flood

smoke from wild fires through the gorge.

Many warnings fill our lives. Paul is giving the Galatians a warning in this passage.

Galatians 5:2-15

Main Idea: Warning: Do Not Deny Christ!

Paul gives three warnings that stack on top of each other.

Warning #1: To rely on the law is to deny Christ (2-6)

Exp. He first makes claim that adherence to the law means you get none of the benefits of Christ. Verse 2. First time he mentions circumcision. Paul has no qualms with circumcision for social purposes. Timothy was circumcised in Acts 16 which occurs after events of Galatians. When it is for salvation, it denies Christ. Advantage = profit. You gain nothing from Christ. Human achievement becomes the goal. Saying yes to circumcision = saying no to Jesus.

Ill. Cory Walker. He wouldn’t choose the best of anything because he felt like he was saying no to everything. That’s the point! Saying yes to the religion of human achievement is saying no to grace.

Exp. He’s not done. Verse 3. ALL OF IT. Not an iota that can be skipped. Must be perfect. Let’s say you keep it. What’s the result? Verse 4. Severed = cause to come to an end. God had called the Galatians through grace, not law. So, by walking this path, you have fallen away. Fallen away = to run a ship aground. Not just wrong direction. Eschatological implications. End result. Verse 5. There is a righteousness given to us now, but it is veiled until glory. Until the end. When we will receive the final righteousness in Christ.

Arg. If we pursue life under the law then the righteousness in the end will not come. People may like how pious we are or how devout we are, but the righteousness that comes from Christ will not come. Why? Because we have fallen from grace. Severed from Christ. Receiving no benefits.

Christ - You cannot be perfect. You cannot work yourself enough. You cannot fulfill the law. But there is one who did. He fulfilled the law and made a way. (John 14:6) Apart from Jesus you are in slavery.

It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our death beds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace, wondrous grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

App. Trust in the grace of Christ. This is the only way to salvation. If you don’t, it leads to the second warning.

Warning #2: False doctrine infects the whole Body (7-12)

Exp. If we rely on works, we deny the grace of Jesus. This leads to a false doctrine. This false, condemning doctrine was leading the Galatian church to defect from the faith. It leads us in the same way. It not only affects the church, but our families. Verse 7.

App. Might I ask you this question? Who is hindering you from obeying the truth? What is hindering you? Sin? Your spouse? Your parents? A friend group? Verse 8. This ain’t God.

Ill. False doctrine infects from the inside like a virus. We’re getting into flu season, and there’s no flu like the man flu. The virus starts inside, and then wrecks everything slowly.

Arg. This is what false doctrine does. Starts as a small dissatisfaction from the ways of God, and then grows slowly infecting the whole heart. Paul uses the illustration of yeast in bread dough. Verse 9. Just a little bit affects the whole batch.

App. How do you spot false doctrine?

Lack of fruit. More and more emptiness and frustration.

Low view of Jesus. If the doctrine has a higher view of man than of Jesus, it’s false.

Low view of Scripture. Paul reminds them in chapter 4 to look at Scripture.

Exp. Eschatological end. Verse 10. Those who kept them from obeying will face the wrath of God. Contrasting the righteousness given at the end next to the condemnation given to the false teachers. Paul even wishes the worst for them in verse 12.

Christ - Correct doctrine is found in Christ, and unity flows from that.

App. Know correct doctrine. Test everything next to Scripture. (Gal. 4:30) If you don’t, then it will lead to the third warning.

Warning #3: Serve each other or devour each other (13-15)

Exp. Paul moves from false doctrine to the outworking of false doctrine. Verse 13. Called to freedom, but not to sin. We are not freed from the curse of the law (sin) just to sin in a different way.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:1–4.

Exp. The outworking of freedom is service. Serve one another. Finishes what he says in verse 6. Quotes the OT in verse 14. It is fulfilled. The whole law is fulfilled by loving your neighbor? Quoting Leviticus 19:18

Leviticus 19:18 ESV

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Ill. End result. When you work out, the end result is being healthy. Students, take time to study for the semester, you are prepared for the final exam.

Arg. Loving each other is the final result of life with Christ. Christ fulfilled the law, and the end result, the end of the law, the end of the ten commandments is about loving each other.

Christ - Jesus brings us the freedom to serve each other. We cannot love God without Jesus. We cannot rightly love others without Jesus.

Arg. If you don’t serve and love each other, you will devour each other. Verse 15. Why? Because false doctrine places the man above Jesus. When that happens, it is all about me.

App. Serve each other in the freedom of Christ.

Conclusion

Trust in the grace of Christ

Know sound doctrine

Serve each other humbly