Galatians Part 10

Intro:

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Recap:

We’ve spent a couple of weeks talking about the doctrine of adoption

We saw first how God comes and fulfills all requirements to pave the way for Him to adopt us as His children

His timing is perfect

His qualifications sufficient

His passions pure

He makes way as the only one possible to pull us out of our mess and into salvation

We also spent time talking about now the privileges we have because all of that is true

We are given a new identity

We are clothed with Christ

We belong

And we are now heirs

So we inherit a good eternal Father

A good eternal family

and a good eternal home

And last week we talked about who we’ve been, who we are, and who we are becoming

Paul used the OT story of Isaac and Ishmael to illustrate the difference of being born of the flesh and slaves to our flesh and being born of the Spirit and living by the Spirit.

Galatians 5:1–15 NIV

1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. 2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4 You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. 7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” 10 I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. 11 Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! 13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

Pray

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

If Galatians had an anthem verse this would be it

This singular verse is the lynchpin to all that Paul is trying to communicate

He so desperately desires the Galatians to live in the freedom found in Christ

This verse acts as a transition from his previous thought into the next. Tying them together perfectly

Sometimes when i’m playing with my girls, we will play scary monster. And the game goes something like this, if the scary monster can see you then he’s going to get you. So what they’ll do is they’ll run to a bed and hide under the covers. then I’ll leave the room and they’ll come tiptoeing out and then scream my name and make a dash for the covers again. And so I’ll end up chasing them around the house. and it’s so funny to watch them run, especially my youngest Naomi. Because I know that she’s running to the bed, she knows she’s running to the bed, but she get’s so fixated on looking at me and where I’m at that number one she runs much slower and number two she often misses the bed and runs into something else.

This is like the picture that Paul has given for the Galatians.

It’s like, man for a little while there you were doing good. You were running a good race. You were headed the right direction, you were doing all the right things

But then you took your eyes off of the prize and began to look back on things that you’ve been freed from and those things are now slowing you down and causing you to miss the mark

He just rebuked the Galatians for going back into the slavery of the flesh.

They were reverting back to old idols, the law, pagan holidays and traditions

They were getting caught up in the old and losing sight of the new and the freedom that it brings

And so in light of this he essentially says, “Be free!”

And if we were to jump down to verse 13 Paul will say “you were called to be free.”

And so there’s this battle going on. And it was going on in the Galatians and it’s going on in us today

And we can somewhat debate some of the details around this but essentially, as believers we have been freed. We have been given the Spirit of God and are no longer slaves to sin, no longer slaves to our flesh.

You could say it this way: we have been freed objectively. (technically or legally)

But we struggle to be free subjectively (experientially, daily)

So, as believers, we all know this to be true

Romans 8:1-2 (NIV)

Romans 8:1–2 NIV

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

We are free from the penalty of sin. (justification)

But we need to learn to live free from the power of sin (sanctification)

So, because of Christ on the cross we live free from the idea of being unacceptable to God.

Christ has made us acceptable!

Now we must learn to rest in and live in that reality

Gerhard Ford said “sanctification is simply the art of getting used to justification.”

So how this plays out in our lives is like this. We must understand that we live free from condemnation and we are accepted in Christ perfectly.

Then we must begin to live in that new identity, not reverting back to old, selfish, fleshly idols.

This is what the Galatians were guilty of. They were, in a sense, practicing self-atonement by believing they needed to add to the gospel of Jesus

We said in one of our first week in Galatians this statement:

The gospel + anything else = not the gospel

Now we must realize this

The gospel + nothing = everything

The good news is today we stand accepted in Christ and there is nothing we can do to make us more accepted.

If we are in Christ we are free!

Now, we must learn to live in the liberty and freedom of Christ.

Because the reality is, although we are free, we still live as though we are not

All throughout this book and this chapter Paul is urging the Galatians to live in freedom and stay away from the things that would try to pull you back into slavery

Galatians 5:1 NIV

1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

So how do we do this? How do we stand firm? What are some watch-outs?

Well, Paul spends a lot of time talking about guarding ourselves against lies against the gospel.

That Christ has set us free to live in the truth

Remember that the Galatians were following lies being told to them

Primarily, that they needed to be circumcised on top of believing in Jesus

And so Paul is going to show them the consequences of believing false teaching

Galatians 5:2 NIV

2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

If the gospel is not enough, than Jesus is not enough.

If we add something to the gospel what we are doing is taking Christ out of it

Paul would say it like this: “Christ becomes of no value to you.”

Galatians 5:3 NIV

3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

If the gospel is not enough, than you must obey the whole law.

And Paul has already made it painstakingly clear that no one can keep the law

Galatians 5:4 NIV

4 You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

If the gospel is not enough, than grace is not enough

You turn away from the doctrine of grace

Galatians 5:5 NIV

5 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.

If the gospel is not enough, than you lose hope of future glory

Righteousness is ours now

2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

But we are waiting for our glorification with Christ

2 Timothy 4:8 NIV

8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Paul says in V 6 what really matters. The only thing that counts.

Galatians 5:6 NIV

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

He goes on to talk about the affects false teachers have

They hinder obedience from the truth V.7

They are not from God V. 8

They contaminate others V. 9

They will be judged V. 10

They hinder true teachers V. 11

Then is verse 12 Paul takes a pretty funny shot at the Judiazer’s

But in 13 he continues his though from verse 6.

Galatians 5:13-15 (NIV)

Galatians 5:13–15 NIV

13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

So we now live in the freedom of Christ but there’s some things to do and some things to avoid while doing so.

We must avoid legalism and license

We must avoid trying to earn Christ acceptance (which he’s talked about at great lengths)

But, we also must avoid misapplying the doctrine of grace

So although we are free from the law, it does not mean we just get to live and do whatever we want

It does not give us that license, rather, it shows us that justified people are now free to do what Christ wants.

And it’s this very freedom that fulfills the OT laws

And it is all summed up in loving one another

So freedom from Christ is not a freedom to sin but a freedom from sin and a freedom to love and serve.

When we really begin to see this and understand this new role it kind of becomes a paradox.

Paul has made it clear, we are no longer slaves

But at the same time he is saying, you are free to be slaves to Christ

Luther said it like this: “A christians is free and independent in every respect, a bond servant to none. A Christian is a dutiful servant in every respect, owing duty to everyone.”

We are free to serve.

And Paul is making this abundantly clear

It’s as if this whole time the Galatians have been so fixated on keeping the law

And maybe this is you. Maybe you’re a checklist kind of person.

Like tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it!

Well, Paul’s response to that is this.

You want a law, here’s one for you: “love.”

You want something to do. Love!

You want to win? then out love everyone else.

This is what it looks like to follow Jesus.

We have been freed from the law.

But we have also been freed to live out the moral teaching of it

And if you want to sum it all up, love.

It’s as simple as that.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, may we accomplish this simple and daunting task

We see, through this command, that following Jesus promotes two primary things.

#1 Oneness with Christ

1 John 4:7–8 NIV

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

If God is love and we are called to be love, to understand love we must be one with Christ.

The more we understand God the more we understand love and the more we understand love (in the Biblical sense) the more we understand God.

God and love are the same thing. God is love!

To follow Jesus and live in the freedom He purchased for us we must be one with Christ.

We must study Him, reflect on Him, rest in Him, move like Him, talk like Him, love Him, be one with Him

This is primary number 1

#2 is this: loving service to one another

We have not been saved to be a bunch of isolated individual Christians

We will talk about this more in the coming weeks and what this looks like but we cannot allow our Americanism to trump our christianity.

We love to take pride in our individualism!

We love to boast in our autonomy.

Christianity is about community

The Lord has saved us so that we could love and serve others

Now, we want to intentionally equip each other to be more like Christ

So, if you don’t know how to do this, if you don’t know where to start, if you aren’t doing this, what I want you to do is one of two things

You can go to our website and fill out our connection card and in the comments section write “interest in serving.”

Or you can find myself or Amy or one of the elders and tell them

We have all sorts of different ways to serve

So if you are more of a behind the scenes person then great, we have plenty of ways for you to serve.

If you are more of a people person then great

Maybe you’re great with kids

Maybe you already serve on Sunday morning but you want to serve outside of just Sunday morning, we have some opportunities for that

Maybe your heart is for global missions, we have ways to serve that way as well.

Regardless of how, we want to put you in positions to fulfill the calling of God on your life.

And a big one is loving and serving others

My prayer for you this week is that you would experience the pleasure of God as you walk out the freedom of the gospel.

I pray you experience the freedom of being no longer guilty

I pray you would overcome the grip of sin on your life

I pray you would feel the pleasure of living by the Spirit

I pray you would experience oneness with your heavenly Father

And I pray that you would embrace the call to love and serve one another

pray