Sermon Tone Analysis

Last week we dove in to the fifth chapter of Galatians and came to an interesting question regarding Christian freedom.

Paul comes right out of the gate with the phrasing, “For freedom Christ has set us free;”

Last week we dove in to the fifth chapter of Galatians and came to an interesting question regarding Christian freedom.

Paul comes right out of the gate with the phrasing, “For freedom Christ has set us free;”

Last week we dove in to the fifth chapter of Galatians and came to an interesting question regarding Christian freedom.

Paul comes right out of the gate with the phrasing, “For freedom Christ has set us free;”

Why has Christ set us free?

So that we could be… free.

Free from what?

He doesn’t answer that in this passage, but from what has already been said, Christians have freedom from the tyranny of the law.

- There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

No condemnation refers to the condemnation that the law brings:

Christ freed us from that tyranny so that we could be free.

I used the example that just like the soldier that goes off to battle goes off to war so that the citizens of that nation could remain free and secure, so Christ our warrior is fought the war we could not win, so that we could be free like the children of God we are.

So the question that Paul answered in the text is “What is our part of preserving that freedom?”

Now, that implies that that freedom could be lost, right?

The way Paul phrased it is found in:

The answer to the question is throughout the passage, but let me summarize: Your freedoms do not rest in your spiritual activity.

Your salvation/justification does not rest in your spiritual activity.

God’s favor does not rest in your spiritual activity.

God is not interested in a lender/debtor relationship.

God wants you to rely solely on Him.

“we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.”

He does not want you to rely on anything other than the righteousness and finished work of Christ to affirm your standing with God.

So, stand firm in the freedom and do NOT submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Okay, so this gets to the bottom of a few questions about freedom, namely “What are we free from?”

Tyranny of the law to condemn us.

And “what are we freed to?”

To be God’s free children.

Now, naturally you would think that the next thing Paul wants to discuss is “What we’re free for”, right?

That way nobody can waltz on out of here thinking that the freedom from the tyranny of the law and of sin, and the freedom to be God’s free children somehow gives a license to do whatever you want without the fear of any consequences.

And Paul does get there, but before he does, he wants them to be able to identify what’s happening to them through a series of random images.

Antinomian comes from a Greek word that means lawlessness.

This goes all the way back to the beginning parts of the letter where we come to understand that the Apostle is being accused of ignoring the law of God and even the top ten moral laws (10 commandments).

And Paul’s point all along has been, “No, I’m not ignoring the law.

The law is good.

But the law has never been and will never be a means to right standing with God.”

The means to right standing with God has been (as with Abraham) and will always be (Gentiles) faith working through love.

Now, most Christians will agree that you cannot earn your salvation, salvation is by grace through faith.

However, when it comes to the area of living the Christian life, well that’s a different story.

“If you want God’s favor and blessing, you’ve got to start doing stuff and you’ve got to stop doing stuff.”

So, you need to stop watching these things, stop listening to these things, stop going these places, and you need to start reading these books and you need to start going to these places, and you need to start doing these things.”

And then you’ve got the polar opposite of that view which is antinomianism which basically says the opposite.

“When you become a Christian, you are totally free.

There are no moral or ethical rules.

Jesus just wants you to be free.

And that sounds a little better on paper, but neither one of them capture the joy of Christian living.

The fallout is bad on both sides.

There is fallout and burnout on both ends.

And the unfortunate part of it all is that neither side really knows what to do with their falling out and burning out.

The legalist is so worried about what other people are thinking they’re content to just hope no one finds out.

And the antinomian falls out or burns out and then just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Oops.

I messed up.

Oh well.”

And sadly those are not good responses because they don’t lead you to any sort of healing or repentance and faith.

So, is Paul promoting antinomianism?

No.

So if it’s not lawlessness, and it’s not legalism, than what is it?

What are we free for?

Before looking at the text, let me just say this: as soon as you begin to understand and enjoy the freedom that you have in Christ—let me get more specific, once you begin to live your life free from the fear of the unknown, the fear that you might not be doing enough to make God happy, the fear that you’re not going to make everyone happy, and the fear that God loves you not because you earned His love, but because He’s just that good of a Father—beware.

Beware of the fact that since the evil once cannot pluck you out of the Father’s hands, that his goal is to estrange you from the Father.

His goal is to get you to live in terror of the Father.

He wants to distort your image of the Father.

And Satan does not fall short of tactics and methods to try and throw Christians (especially those who live in freedom) off track.

And here is the tough part, the attempts of the evil one to trip us up, rarely ever come packaged the way that we might think.

More than likely, you’ll be tempted to do good things with wrong motives than you will to do evil things.

It’s not often that Satan is going to tempt the person who battles to trust God in their finances with the instructions to a clean heist on their doorstep.

Paul loved analogies and illustrations because he knew that was the language that human beings understood.

This is an important lesson for us especially when we’re trying to teach Biblical truth.

Some times we think all we need to do is pile on Bible verse after Bible verse and eventually the Bible is going to ware people out and they’ll get the lesson (I.e.

Our kids.)

Most people don’t function that way, so God designed our minds and our hearts to be moved to understand pictures and stories and illustrations.

Clearly, Paul did not just make Galatians story time, but scan through the last five chapters and you will find a ton of examples, stories, and pictures all to help the Galatians better grasp what he is teaching them.

The Race Track

Paul loved analogies and illustrations because he knew that was the language that human beings understood.

This is an important lesson for us especially when we’re trying to teach Biblical truth.

Some times we think all we need to do is pile on Bible verse after Bible verse and eventually the Bible is going to ware people out and they’ll get the lesson (I.e.

Our kids.)

Most people don’t function that way, so God designed our minds and our hearts to be moved to understand pictures and stories and illustrations.

Clearly, Paul did not just make Galatians story time, but scan through the last five chapters and you will find a ton of examples, stories, and pictures all to help the Galatians better grasp what he is teaching them.

So as Paul talks about persevering in your freedom as a Christian he relates it to runners running in a race.

Track and field didn’t look identical to what it looks like now.

They didn’t run on an oval track, they ran in a straight line and at the end of this track was a post in the ground.

They were to touch the post and run back to their starting point.

The picture that Paul is painting is of these Christians all running in this race and making their charge from the rear are these Judaizers and as they’re running they’re “hindering” the runners from touching the post.

In other translations we have a little better picture.

They use the phrase “cutting in.”

To cut in on a runner who is running at full speed is going to either slow them way down, or make them trip up all together.

Paul sees these false teachers as people who have no good intentions for the Galatians, but by nature of their message they are cutting in and hindering the Galatians from running well.

Paul says, “You were running really well…” Galatians, you received the Gospel, you experienced God’s power working in your own lives, you were running on that freedom track, and while I know that it’s long and exhausting, you are on the right track!

He says, “You were obeying the truth.”

It’s very important that we understand what that phrase means.

What does “obeying the truth” actually get at?

In contrast to lawlessness that does not believe you need to obey anything and legalism that says you must obey everything, libertine Christianity requires obedience to the truth of the Gospel.

The truth of the Gospel is that we are incapable of saving ourselves and we are incapable of changing ourselves.

Obeying the truth boils down to a full dependence upon the triunity of God for our salvation and our sanctification.

And that is a good litmus test for what Paul says next...

The Courtroom (Scene 1)

Stepping back for just a minute, part of the purpose of this whole letter so far has been an explanation of why these false teachers are NOT from God.

So that has to make you wonder, is Paul able to say this because he’s an Apostle?