You Can’t Add to Jesus

SERMON FRAMEWORK

Subject: What happens to you when you add something to Christ?

Complement: You forfeit the benefit of Christ, you take on the whole debt of the law, and you cut yourself off from the grace that was holding you.

Dominant Thought: Adding to Christ does not improve your standing with God — it cancels it.

Aim: To persuade every believer to stop supplementing the gospel and to rest wholly in Christ, whose faith proves itself by love.

Propositional Statement: Every believer must refuse every addition to Christ, because whatever gets added to Christ eventually replaces Christ.

Big Idea: Christ plus anything is Christ minus everything.

Sermon Thesis: In Galatians 5:2–6, Paul warns the Galatian churches that accepting circumcision as a requirement for standing with God will cost them the benefit of Christ, obligate them to the entire law, and sever them from grace — because the only thing that carries any weight in Christ Jesus is faith working through love.

Galatians 5:2–6 ESV

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.

INTRODUCTION

Somebody in Galatia had done their homework.

When those teachers walked into those churches telling Gentile believers they needed to be circumcised, they did not come in waving a flag that said false teacher. They came in with a Bible. They came in with Genesis 17, where God himself — not Moses, not a council, not a custom — sat down with Abraham and said, “This is my covenant … every male among you shall be circumcised.” That is not a suggestion. That is a command, and God attached a penalty to it: the uncircumcised man “shall be cut off from his people.”

So understand what Paul is up against here. He is not fighting a bad idea. He is fighting a good thing that got moved out of its place. Circumcision was God’s own sign. For two thousand years it marked out the people who belonged to him, and when a Gentile wanted in, that was the door he walked through. Now here come these teachers, sitting down with brand-new believers, saying, “We are not asking you to leave Jesus. We would never ask you to leave Jesus. We are asking you to finish. Get the sign. Complete what you started.” Luke tells us in Acts 15 exactly how they said it: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” There it is. Not instead of Christ — in addition to Christ. And standing next to the name of Jesus, “in addition to” is the most dangerous phrase in the English language.

Last week Paul gave them one flat command — stand firm, do not go back. Now he stops arguing and he starts warning. “Look.” βλέπετε (blepete) — look here, look at me, look at what I am about to say to you. “I, Paul, say to you.” He signs his own name to it, because what is coming next is going to sound extreme, and he wants the church to know he meant every word of it.

Because Paul is about to tell some sincere, church-attending, Jesus-loving people that you cannot add one thing to Jesus — and that the very thing they were adding in order to belong is the thing that was about to cut them off.

Transition: Because Paul is about to tell some sincere, church-attending, Jesus-loving people that you cannot add one thing to Jesus — and that the very thing they were adding in order to belong is the thing that was about to cut them off.

I. WHATEVER YOU ADD WON’T HELP YOU (vv. 2–3)

Galatians 5:2–3 ESV

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.

“If you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.” No advantage. The word is ὠφελήσει (ōphelēsei), and it is not a church word — it is a business word. It is what a merchant writes in the last column after all the buying and the selling is finished: what did I come out with? Paul takes that column, and under the name of Jesus he writes one number. Nothing. Not “less.” Not “some.” Nothing.

Now hear me before somebody leaves here thinking Paul had a problem with a procedure. He did not. He had Timothy circumcised in Acts 16 and slept fine that night. He refused it for Titus back in chapter two of this same letter and would not give an inch. Same act, opposite answers. It was never the knife. It was the sentence attached to the knife. When it was a courtesy, Paul allowed it. When it was a requirement for salvation, Paul went to war — because the moment you make anything necessary for your standing with God, you have made that thing a savior. And there is only one seat for that, and it is occupied.

Then verse three, and Paul turns the receipt over so you can read the back of it. “I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.” Obligated — ὀφειλέτης (opheiletēs). That is not a religious word either. That is a debtor. Not a man who ought to. A man who owes.

Illustration. When you sign a lease, you do not sign for the front room. You sign for the whole house. You sign for the roof when it starts leaking in March. You sign for the furnace when it quits on the coldest night of the year. You sign for the rent in the month you got laid off. Nobody in the history of this city ever signed a lease for the parts of the house they liked. Your name at the bottom of that page is your name on all of it. And Paul says circumcision is not a box you check. Circumcision is a signature. You are not picking up one commandment you admire. You just signed for the whole book — every clause, every command, every month, no missed payments, for the rest of your natural life.

Application. Now nobody is handing out circumcision forms in the vestibule. But somebody in this room has made a deal with God. You may not have said it out loud — most folks don’t — but you were in a hard place, the kind of place where a person will say anything, and you told him: Lord, if you bring my child home, I will never miss another Sunday as long as I live. Lord, if this test comes back clean, I will be in my Word every morning for the rest of my days. Lord, if you fix this one thing, I will fix that one thing. And he came through. He did. That is not the part that troubles me. Here is the part. For a while, you kept it. You kept it faithfully. And then life did what life does. There came a stretch when you could not get up at five in the morning. There came a season when you missed more Sundays than you made. And it was not simply that you felt bad about it. Something in you quietly decided the arrangement was off. And if the arrangement was off, then his side of it was off too. So you stopped asking him for anything — because how do you walk back up to a man you owe? Now look at verse three with me, because it is the most merciful sentence in this whole passage and it does not look like it. Paul says the man who takes on one obligation has made himself a debtor to the entire thing. That is not Paul threatening you. That is Paul reaching for you. He is telling you the deal was never real. You cannot make a deal with God — not because he would not take it, but because he already made one, and he made it with his own Son, and it was signed in blood long before you ever thought of anything to offer him. So somebody in here stopped praying two or three years ago over a promise you believe you broke. Hear me this morning, and let it settle: you never had a contract with God. You have a Father. And you have been treating your Father like a creditor.

Transition: Paul has told you what your addition cannot do for you. It cannot help you. It cannot profit you. It cannot move the needle one degree in your favor. But he is not finished with the accounting, because the tragedy of verse three is not what your addition fails to do for you. The tragedy of verse four is what it does to you.

II. WHATEVER YOU ADD WILL COST YOU (v. 4)

Galatians 5:4 ESV

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

“You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.” Two verbs, and both of them land like a hammer.

The first is κατηργήθητε (katērgēthēte) — severed, cut loose, rendered inoperative. It is the word for a thing that has been made useless because the connection that made it work is gone. The power is still on in the house. The line outside is still live. But the cord got pulled, and nothing is running through that appliance anymore.

The second is ἐξεπέσατε (exepesate) — you have fallen out. In the old Greek that word belonged to sailors. It is what they said about a ship that had fallen off her course, driven out of the channel she was cut for. Not sunk. Not wrecked. Off.

Illustration. You have seen the barges on the Illinois River. Long strings of them lashed together, pushed up and down that channel by a towboat that is doing all the work. That barge does not have an engine in it. Not one. Everything it has comes down the line that ties it to the boat. Now if that line parts, the barge does not sink — and that is exactly what fools you. It sits up on that water looking precisely like a barge is supposed to look. It just is not going anywhere the boat is going anymore. From that moment on, the river decides. And the whole time it is drifting it is still floating, so nobody standing on it thinks a thing is wrong. Paul says, “You didn’t sink. You drifted. And that line you cut loose from was the only thing you had that was ever moving you toward God.”

Pastoral Word. Let me stop right here, because somebody just got scared. There is a saint in this room who heard “fallen away from grace” and immediately started running the tape on every failure of the last six months, and I am not letting you walk out of here carrying that. Read the middle of the verse: “you who would be justified by the law.” Paul is describing people who are trying to get right with God on their own performance. He is not describing people who fail and run back to Jesus. If you stumbled this week and your first instinct was to reach for the cross, you are not the person in verse four — because the person in verse four never reaches for the cross. He reaches for his record. Falling into sin and running to Christ is not falling from grace. Falling from grace is climbing down out of Christ to stand on yourself.

Application. So let something go this morning — just be sure it is the right rope you are turning loose. A lot of us came up in houses where the gospel arrived with a dress code. And I want to be careful here, because I did not stand up this morning to make light of anybody’s mother or anybody’s grandmother. Those women loved God. They meant every word of it. When they said a lady does not wear pants into the house of the Lord, when they said take that paint off your face before you come to this altar, when they said a man who respects God will put on a suit and a tie — they were not trying to wound anybody. They were trying to give God their very best in the only language anybody ever taught them. But church, hear me. Somewhere along the line, in a whole lot of houses, that stopped being reverence and it started being the measure. And the moment a thing becomes the measure, it starts doing the one job that belongs to Jesus and to nobody else. It starts deciding who is in. I have met people who cannot walk into a sanctuary without checking themselves at the door — not their heart, their hemline. I have met men who honestly believe God hears them better in a jacket. And I have known women who stopped coming altogether, not because they quit believing, but because they got tired of feeling inspected. Somebody sitting in here this morning has a daughter who has not set foot in a church building in eleven years, and if you will be honest with yourself about that last conversation, the one that ran her off — it was not about Jesus. It was about a skirt. Now understand me: if you want to put on your very best on a Sunday morning, put it on. Wear the suit. Nobody is taking that from you, and I am not preaching against it. But the second that suit becomes the reason you believe you are accepted — or the reason you believe somebody else is not — Paul says you have not added a standard. You have changed saviors. And the same rule you thought was tying you closer to God is the rope you cut loose from without ever knowing it was the one holding you. Church, you cannot be justified twice. Somebody in this room has been trying to ride two boats going two different directions, and I am telling you this morning — one of them is about to take your hands off the other. So let it go. Not your reverence — hold on to that with both hands. Let go of the ruler.

Transition: He has told you what it will not do for you, and he has told you what it will cost you. Now watch him do something you would not expect after four verses that severe. He stops saying “you” and he starts saying “we.” And he tells you what is left when everything you were adding gets taken away — and what is left turns out to be everything.

III. HE’S ALL THAT COUNTS (vv. 5–6)

Galatians 5:5–6 ESV

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.

Did you catch the pronoun? For four verses it has been “you.” Now it is “we ourselves.” Paul walks back over and stands with them. He is not preaching down at these people; he is telling them where he is standing and inviting them back over. And he says we are waiting. ἀπεκδεχόμεθα (apekdechometha) — the word has the neck in it. Not the waiting of a man in a doctor’s office thumbing through a magazine. The waiting of a woman at the window.

And look what we are waiting on — “the hope of righteousness.” Not the hope that we will one day be declared righteous. That verdict came down the day we believed. This is waiting for the day it gets read out loud in front of everybody. The legalist is still working on his verdict. We already have ours.

Then verse six, and Paul says the quiet thing out loud: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything.” Counts — ἰσχύει (ischyei). It means to carry force, to be valid. It is an expired ID at the counter: still your face, still your name, still your birthday — and it carries no weight whatsoever where it matters.

And notice he cuts both ways. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision. The man proud of the mark and the man proud of not having the mark are running the same ledger — they just wrote different numbers in it. The sister in the long skirt and the sister in the slacks — if either one of them is standing this morning on what she has on, then both of them are standing on nothing. “But only faith working through love.” Working — ἐνεργουμένη (energoumenē). Faith with the engine running. Love is not what makes faith count. Love is how you can tell the faith is alive.

Illustration. There is a kind of waiting that is not sitting down. Anybody who has ever had somebody coming home knows the difference. The house is quiet. The plate is in the oven with foil over the top of it. And you are not asleep — every set of headlights that comes around that corner puts you at the window. Now understand: you did not do a thing to make them come. You cannot make them come. But do not tell me you are not doing anything, because the whole house is ready. That is verse five — the Spirit has us at the window. And that plate in the oven, church, that is verse six. That is faith with its sleeves rolled up. Waiting on Jesus was never idleness. It means everything you are doing, you are doing because you already know who is coming.

Application. So put something in the oven this week. Faith working through love is not a warm feeling you carry around about people in general. It has a name attached to it. It has a phone number attached to it. There is a member of this church who has not been back since the funeral, and you know exactly who I am talking about, because you thought of her the second I said it. Do not text her. Call her. And when she picks up, do not have anywhere else to be for a while — because the reason she stopped coming is that everybody stopped calling after the third week, and she has started to believe she was only ever loved for one season. And somebody in here has a young man in the family that the whole family has already written off. They talk about him at the table like he is not coming back. Go get him. Take him to breakfast where people can see the two of you sitting together, because some Saturday mornings the loudest sermon you will ever preach is who you are willing to be seen with. And a few of us are carrying an apology we have been calling a personality difference for two years now. You know what you said. So does she. Now if you are the one sitting there this morning proud of everything you do not do — I love you, but Paul is talking to you too. Your empty list counts exactly what their full list counts. Zero. Come on down off of it and go love somebody. And do not you dare do a single one of these things to get in. You are already in. That is the whole difference between paying off a debt and saying thank you.

CELEBRATION

Church, I have been warning you all morning about being severed from Christ. Let me tell you about the only man who ever really was cut off. Isaiah saw him seven hundred years before he got here and said he was “cut off out of the land of the living.” Not cut off from his people — cut off for his people. The only man who ever walked this earth who never missed a payment on the whole book. He kept every clause from Genesis to Malachi and never once needed a single thing added to him.

And on Friday they took him outside the gate, where they carried the unclean thing. They laid the whole book on his back and they hung him on a tree. And when the sky went black in the middle of the afternoon, the Father did the thing the law required somebody to do. He cut him off. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” That is not poetry, church. That is verse four happening to the only man who did not have it coming.

And they took him down and they buried him. Rolled a stone in front of him, set a seal on it, put a guard on it. Friday night that ledger looked closed.

But early — early Sunday morning, while it was still dark! Somewhere in that grave the dead man moved. Blood started running. Lungs took in air. And he got up! He got up with the receipt in his hand! He got up and the ledger said paid! He got up and the whole book was satisfied! He got up and there was nothing left to add, nothing left to sign, nothing left to owe!

Paul says over in Colossians that there is a circumcision “made without hands.” There is a cutting that God himself does. And it happened at Calvary — where the flesh was cut away, and it was his flesh, and it was cut away for you.

So don’t you go looking for one more thing to add this morning. There is nothing left to add. The cutting is finished, and it was done in his flesh and not in yours. Somebody already got cut off so that you never would be. You are not severed — you are sealed. You are not drifting — you are tied to a boat that has never lost a barge yet. And one of these mornings he is coming around that corner, and the plate is going to still be warm.

Soli Deo Gloria.