[0:00] We had a few weeks off because of snowstorms and things, so it's been a little while.
[0:12] A few weeks before that break, we have been talking about the book of Galatians, and lately we had talked about the fact that we are part of the family of God, and that we get to be children of God through Jesus Christ.
[0:32] Sometimes we tend to kind of wander a little bit, so we have to come back to that blessed place where we remember that we are part of the family of God. And then we talked about staying on the right track, trying to stay on the track where we understand who we are in Christ and what we have in Him.
[0:50] And today we're going to talk about stand fast. In Galatians chapter 5, beginning at verse 1, it says this, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not untangled again with the yoke of bondage.
[1:08] Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
[1:21] Christ is become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace. For ye, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of the righteousness by faith.
[1:35] For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. Let's have word prayer.
[1:47] Father, I just thank you for your word. Lord, I thank you for what it teaches, what it shows us. Lord, I thank you for your Holy Spirit opening our eyes to things so that we see your word as it truly is.
[2:03] Lord, I pray that you would help each one here today to learn. Help them to leave here ready to stand fast in the liberty where Christ hath made them free. Lord, I pray that you would help us learn to live by faith.
[2:17] Faith in the Son of God who gave his life for us. Lord, I pray that you would just minister to hearts and lives. You would help us to leave here this morning with a closer walk with a God who loves us and gave himself for us.
[2:33] Thank you for all that you've done. Bless now in this time. In Jesus' name, amen. Galatians is a book of doctrine. We've talked about that a little bit along the way. It tells us, this is what you should believe.
[2:46] This is what you should know. These are the things that you should understand as we've been going through it. It's a series of contrasts. On one hand, you have the way of the law.
[2:59] On the other hand, you have the way of grace. On the other hand, you have the works. On the other hand, you have faith. Ways of men, the way of God.
[3:10] So it gives a contrast of these different things as we've been going through the book. And remember, we've been talking about people called the Judaizers. They were people who said, it's okay to believe in Jesus, but you've got to do all the Jewish traditions.
[3:24] You've got to do all the Jewish law. You've got to do all the things that go along with that. So you can believe in Jesus. That's all right. But you've still got to do all of these things. And Paul's been battling that as he's gone through this.
[3:35] And you know, what's interesting, it's usually religious people that we have more problems with than anybody. It's not the atheist who says, you Christians are strange, you Christians do, you know, they disagree with us, they just kind of ignore us.
[3:53] But other religious people want to know, you guys got it wrong and you got it wrong and you got it wrong and they're always coming. You look back through history and more Christians have been killed, martyred by other religious people than by atheists and stuff.
[4:13] So he says, look, you've got these people who are coming after you, these Judaizers. You've got to be ready to stand. You've got to be ready to know what they're after and what it is they believe.
[4:25] in Revelation chapter 17, verse 6, it talks about the fact that in the end times, there's going to be a religious system.
[4:38] And in that religious system, it says this in that verse, Revelation 17, 6, they were drunk with the blood of the saints. They're the ones who are going to go after true Christians.
[4:51] The religious people are going to do that, not the others. So here's Paul, he's talking to them and he says, look, I've been teaching you about justification by faith.
[5:02] You're just as if you'd never sinned because of the faith you put in Jesus Christ. And now he's going to give them some challenges. That's what he's been talking about.
[5:13] Now he's going to give them some challenges about living it out, practical living of your Christian life as he goes into chapter 5 here in these last couple chapters. And so, there's a constant assault coming from these false teachers.
[5:28] And Paul says, to start off with, here's your response. Here's how you're supposed to handle that. Number one, stand in Christian liberty. Stand in Christian liberty.
[5:41] Verse 1 again, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Go back in chapter 4.
[5:53] Look at verse 28. Just before here. He says in verse 28, Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. We have the promises of God coming to us.
[6:06] Then he goes on, he says in verse 29, But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit. We were just talking about that. It's the religious people who tend to go after us.
[6:18] Verse 30, Therefore, I went, Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.
[6:31] So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free. He says, you need to stand in the freedom that God has given to you.
[6:44] You need to stand in the fact that God has given Jesus Christ to come and die for you. He has taken the punishment for sin. He has given everything so that you could be saved.
[6:55] Stand fast in what Jesus has done for you. Excuse me. The final two chapters here, he's going to say, look, here's what the Spirit-filled Christian life looks like.
[7:09] If you stand fast in Christ, here's what it should look like. First of all, the position of our stand. He says, stand fast in the liberty. In the liberty.
[7:20] What does that mean? The freedom. We all know we talk about liberty a lot here in the United States. Liberty has to do with being set free. A believer's true liberty comes through Jesus Christ.
[7:37] When we give ourselves to him, he gives us the freedom that we need. freedom from sin, freedom from the law, and God provides it all.
[7:50] He gives us Christ. He gave us Christ. And through Christ, we have this freedom, this deliverance. Romans chapter 6, verses 17 and 18.
[8:04] But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
[8:20] Jesus Christ gave you freedom from the sins. We no longer have to be the servants of sin. we have a choice now.
[8:33] Before, we did not have a choice. You're a sinner. You did what sinners do. You followed sin's nature. But he says, you have a choice now. You're still going to be a servant, but you can be a servant of righteousness.
[8:48] You can serve what is right and what is good. You can serve the one who gives you a choice. You understand, you didn't have a choice. Now you have a choice.
[8:59] Do I want to follow God or do I want to stay following the sin? Now you have a choice. Christ set us free in the fact that we don't have to feel guilt. The law did nothing but bring guilt.
[9:14] The law did nothing but show us how bad we were. But now he says, you have a choice to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
[9:25] And then he says, not only do you have that opportunity to take that stand, that position, but he says, be persistent in your stand.
[9:38] Be persistent in your stand. And he says, stand fast. What does that mean? Stand firm. To persevere. To persist in what you're doing.
[9:52] Paul's telling the Galatians, hold your ground. Do not go backwards. Do not go anywhere, either side.
[10:02] Stand fast right where you are. In the liberty where Christ has made you free, he says, stand fast in Jesus Christ. You have everything that he has offered to you.
[10:17] We've talked here in recent weeks about being part of the family of God. I am God's child. I am God's heir. I am a joint heir with Jesus Christ.
[10:29] I am part of his family. He says, don't ever go back from that. Why would you? Why would you leave that? I'm part of God's family.
[10:41] Ephesians chapter 6, you all know well, starting at verse 11, it says, put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wilds of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
[11:02] Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to withstand an evil day and having done all to stand.
[11:13] think about that passage of scripture. We don't stand against flesh and blood. We stand against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness.
[11:26] Anything coming into your life that seems like is bad, he says, it's the devil working. No, no. So these people are saying this and these people are doing this and those people are doing it.
[11:38] And he says, no, it's the devil. Don't get mad at the people. It doesn't matter what the devil is doing. Get upset with him. And then he says, you know, stand fast.
[11:51] You know, and it goes on from that passage. You know, it talks about the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit and the shoes in preparation of the gospel.
[12:03] Do you know Romans, when they had their sandals on for battle, they actually had them made with like things coming out at the bottom, like nails and things, like cleats we have today, so that when they went into the battle, they could plant their feet and stay in the battle.
[12:23] Nobody was pushing them backwards. They would plant, they'd move forward, they'd move forward, but they would stand fast. They were never going to go backwards. He says, look, Christian, be like those Roman soldiers.
[12:38] Stand fast. do not allow yourself to go backward. Do not allow yourself to take on other things that are not part of the gospel of Christ. This idea is repeated throughout scripture.
[12:53] 1 Corinthians 16, 13. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, stand up.
[13:11] Do not go backwards. 2 Thessalonians 2, 15. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or by our epistle.
[13:25] You know the word of God. You know what it says. Do not go backwards. Stand fast on the word of God. That's what our job is as Christians and part of it.
[13:36] We're to know this book. And as we know this book, he says, stand fast in this book. Whether it's by the traditions that have been taught about it or by the epistle that Paul wrote to them, he said, you stand.
[13:51] Do not go backwards. So, we're to stand fast in the Christian liberty that we have. Well, then what? Stand against the yoke of bondage.
[14:03] Stand against the yoke of bondage. Look at verses 2 through 4. Verse 2 says, Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
[14:16] For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he that is a debtor to do the whole law, Christ has become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.
[14:32] He says, look, don't get caught up in the bondage of being, going through those Jewish traditions. Don't get caught up in that yoke of bondage again. He gives, first of all, a definition of bondage and the fact that it's the idea the Jews were called the circumcised.
[14:49] He says, you're getting caught up in the tradition that was in the law, but he said it is not necessarily of Christ. And the problem with getting caught up in the law we talked about a few weeks ago was what?
[15:03] The Jews had 530 some odd laws. You had to keep them all. In order to be a good Jew you had to keep them all. We narrowed it down to 10, the 10 commandments.
[15:17] And in the 10 commandments we pointed out, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt, you know, I haven't done that, haven't done that, haven't done that. Number 10, thou shalt not covet.
[15:28] Do we covet? Oh, look at that car he has. Why wish I had one like that?
[15:39] Oh, look at that house they got me and that is something else. I don't know what I would do with something like that, but I'd like it. You know, we covet. And the problem is, well, I kept this and this and this and this.
[15:54] I only messed up in this one. But what did we point out? You mess up in the one, what did you do? You broke the law. The whole thing.
[16:07] Because you broke the law. And he says, you can't do that. He says, if you're going to go by the law and you're going to live by the law, you have to live by the entire thing.
[16:21] Which sounds good, but not possible. There's a man by the name of Paul Tripp. He's a pastor and writer. And he wrote this.
[16:32] Human legalism leads to human self-righteousness. I can keep all these laws. I am a good person. I can earn my way into heaven because I can do all these things.
[16:47] Then he says, human self-righteousness denies the need for the saving, enabling grace of Christ. If I can do it on my own, I don't need Jesus.
[16:59] If I can keep all these laws myself, I don't need someone else. I don't need to follow Jesus. I don't need to have him take care of me. Human righteousness embraces the cruelest of Satan's lies.
[17:12] That a person can be righteous by keeping the law. I can do enough good to earn my way to heaven. No, we can't do it.
[17:24] It's not possible. He goes on. If that were true, there would have been no need for the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
[17:36] If I can do it on my own, God wasted his time. God wasted his effort. God wasted the life of Jesus by sending him because I don't need Jesus.
[17:46] I can do it on my own. And we all know that that is not true. There's not a one of us that hasn't sinned.
[17:58] We're born with a sinful nature. As I've mentioned many times before, you take a baby. You don't have to teach a baby to want their own way. You don't have to teach a child growing up how to lie.
[18:10] You don't have to teach them how to be mean-spirited. You don't... They're born with it. He says, look, Jesus came to give us salvation.
[18:22] Paul's telling them, look, circumcision's not going to do it. Not being circumcised is not going to do it. He talks about that in a few minutes too. What we need is Jesus. And if we try to do it on our own, then we have a debt of bondage.
[18:40] A debt of bondage. Look in chapter... Verse 3. Verse 3. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
[18:55] I testify. I declare. I protest. I... Whatever you want to put in there for testify. Paul's saying, look, let me show you something.
[19:09] Let me show you what the law can do and what the law cannot do. He says, here's the law. You want to follow the law? You want to do the things of the law? That's great. But here's what the law does.
[19:21] Remember back in chapter 3 he talked about it being a schoolmaster? Chapter 3, verse 25. It says, but after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
[19:34] He talked about it a little bit before that being a schoolmaster. He says, look, what was the law for? It was to teach us we couldn't do it on our own. Here's the law.
[19:46] This is what you need to do in order to be considered a good person. Well, I failed there and I failed there. I did that one and I did that one and I did that one but oh, I messed up that one.
[19:57] Like I said, there was 500 and some odd different laws. The law was good at condemning us. The law was good at saying, you failed here, you failed there, you failed on this one.
[20:12] It gave us a list but it was a list that says, you failed, you failed, you failed. What good is that? It showed us we need a savior because the law was good at condemning but the law is not good at saving.
[20:30] We need a savior because we cannot do things on our own. We cannot come to God on our own because we're not good enough. Romans chapter 8 verse 3 says, for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh.
[20:56] He said, I sent Jesus Christ to take care of the problem. I sent Jesus Christ to make sure that you can have a way of salvation. I sent Jesus Christ so you don't have to keep all of the law.
[21:07] He fulfilled the law. Remember he said that when he came. He came to fulfill the law. So he says, look, if you place yourself under the law, then you've got to place yourself under the whole law.
[21:18] You've got to keep it all and that's not happening. We cannot do it. He says, if you want to view justification in the right way, he says, you have to do it through the fact that Jesus Christ paid the price.
[21:37] Galatians chapter 3 verse 10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
[21:53] He says, if you can't fulfill them all, it doesn't work. And there's no way we're fulfilling them all. What's the danger of bondage?
[22:05] The danger. Look at verse 4. Christ has become of no effect unto you. He says, if you want to keep the law and do the law and live according to those rules and regulations, he says, look, that's great, but you've made Christ of no effect.
[22:24] Christ is inoperative, inactive. He's idle. Doesn't amount to anything. In other words, this idea that I can come to Christ for salvation and then keep all of these laws and stuff, he says, nope, they don't go together.
[22:41] They do not work together. Galatians 2, 21. I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
[22:57] He's saying the exact same thing I just said a minute ago. He said, if Christ, if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain. It was a waste of time for Jesus to come. If I can be saved by keeping the law, then Jesus should have just stayed in heaven sitting on his throne instead of going through all the stuff he went through down here because it's just a waste of time.
[23:21] Paul's painting a pretty I don't know what the word is on what, but he's painting a picture for him that, you know what, see the foolishness of thinking that I have to do this and this and this, Jesus already did it.
[23:40] You've heard many times here, Christianity, most of the world religions is a religion of do this, do this, and do this. Christianity is a religion of Christ did it all already.
[23:57] He took care of it all. All we have to do is trust him. Which brings us to point number three. Stay with the hope of salvation.
[24:08] Stay with the hope of salvation. See, if we're going to stand fast and then we're going to stand against the yoke of bondage, then he says, look, stay with the hope of salvation.
[24:26] How do we do that? First of all, we do it through the Spirit. Look at verse 5, 5 and 6. He says, for we, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
[24:41] For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. He says, for we, through the Spirit, through the Spirit.
[24:57] See, if you go by the law and you're trying to live by the law, by doing right, by doing all these things, he says, you're not going to succeed.
[25:08] You're not going to be able to do it. You're going to have a whole lot of insecurity because, did I do this right? Did I do that right? Did I do the other thing right? Am I keeping the law? Am I doing, I remember a family one time that they had some trouble with the doctrine of the righteousness of Christ.
[25:28] And, they had some issues because the children in the family were always worried.
[25:41] I remember one in particular. One child was always, am I doing enough? Did I do it in the right way? Am I going to be able to make it to heaven because of doing this or that or the other thing?
[25:56] Am I going to be able to make it because I didn't do this, that, or the other thing? They were always worried. Were they going to make it? The Bible doesn't want that for us. Jesus doesn't want that for us.
[26:07] To always be worried about whether they're going to make it. He says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's pretty simple and straightforward. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
[26:17] No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Come to Jesus. Let him take care of it. He already did. Just trust him. See, when we try to put things back on ourselves, the insecurity that comes there.
[26:33] When we try to put things back on ourselves, the frustration, am I doing it right? Am I doing what God wants me to do? God says, Jesus already did it.
[26:47] Just trust him. Jesus, I trust you. I trust that you have given yourself for my sin. I know what you did on the cross.
[26:59] I know how you went to the cross. I know that you rose again from the dead and I'm trusting that for my salvation. Do we trust Christ?
[27:10] Romans chapter 8 verses 10 and 11. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.
[27:24] You have the righteousness of Christ in you. Verse 11. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you.
[27:39] He says, God who raised up Jesus from the dead, his spirit dwells in you. You ask him to come into your life, he says he dwells in you and he will quicken your mortal body.
[27:53] He will bring you to life for all eternity. God will take care of you. God has already done it. It's just a matter of us believing what he did.
[28:04] And when we believe God and what he did, it changes our entire outlook on how we view this life and the life to come.
[28:15] And it changes our entire view of how we see God. Let me give you an illustration. Husband and wife got married. As they went along, they realized they really didn't love each other.
[28:30] and the man was so demanding that he made a list of things that he thought his wife should do. What time she should get up in the morning.
[28:41] What time she should have breakfast ready for him. What she should do for housework every day. Had it all listed out. You know, this is what you need to do. After a few years, he passed away.
[28:58] It doesn't say how he passed away. But he passed away. As time passed, there was another man who came into the woman's life.
[29:09] She fell in love with him. And he dearly loved her. Truly, truly loved her. And they got married and the man did everything he could to make his wife happy.
[29:25] He gave her all kinds of tokens of appreciation and things. and one day she was cleaning the house. Excuse me. One day she was cleaning the house and she opened up a drawer and found the list from the first husband.
[29:41] And she opened it up and she looked at it and all the things he had listed there she realized she was doing for the second husband. she was fulfilling all those things that had been expected of her from the first husband but she was doing them now for the second husband only now she was doing them out of love not out of obligation.
[30:05] She was doing them all not because she had a list because she loved her husband and wanted to do what was right. See this is how we should respond to God not because we have a list of things to do not because of keeping the law we should respond to God because we love him for what he has done for us.
[30:30] Paying the price of salvation rising from the dead preparing a home for us in heaven all of those things that God is doing that Jesus is doing he says look just love me that's all I want from you I want you to love me and when you love him you're going to do things just because you love him so we love him through the spirit we also love him through faith look at verse 6 again for in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision but faith which worketh by love he says look whether you're circumcised or not makes absolutely no difference whatsoever according to the law it did but according to this nope didn't make any difference whatsoever he says you're justified by faith and if you're justified by faith and you believe in God and you're following him later on it's going to say in this chapter chapter 5 verse 22 the fruit of the spirit is love see if we truly know
[31:40] God we're going to love him and if we truly love him we're going to do things that please him not a list of rules and regulations but we're going to do things that make him happy because we love him and what he's done for us Romans chapter 13 verse 10 love worketh no ill to his neighbor therefore love is the fulfilling of the law love is the fulfilling of the law Jesus came and the word says that he fulfilled the law how did he do that he came and he loved us and gave himself for us how do we show that we can fulfill what God wants us to do love the Lord thy God with all thy heart soul mind and strength love thy neighbor as they so do we love Jesus and what he has done for us the law would condemn us but
[32:48] Jesus forgave us we keep our perspective on Christ and his sacrifice that he did for us we don't need rules and regulations to keep us in line we do it out of respect and out of love for who he is we can walk in Christian liberty in the spirit of God we can serve God because we want to serve him not because the law requires it we serve him because we love him Paul says look stand fast in the liberty where Christ has made you free stand fast because we know he loves us he came and gave himself for us we should stand fast because we love him because we want to reciprocate the love he showed us back to him now
[33:49] I'm going to take this whole message and turn it upside down what is the easiest way for us to learn to stand fast hmm the fastest way for us to learn to stand fast is to learn to bow the knee what the fastest way for us to learn how to stand for Jesus Christ is when we learn to bow the knee come on up is when we learn to bow the knee to who he is worship him for who he is worship him for what he has done for us worship him because he loved us enough to come and give his life for us we!
[34:41] worship Jesus Christ with all of our heart soul mind and strength and then when we do that we will be able to stand for him in every way if you're here this morning you've never asked Jesus Christ to come in your life come talk to me after the service I'd be glad to show you how you can know for sure that Jesus Christ has provided salvation for you and you can have that salvation for all eternity if you don't want to talk to me talk to somebody else here many here could help you with that but in order to do that like I said we need to learn to bow before Jesus and exalt him for who he is let's stand heard