We've been working our way through this book and we come to Galatians chapter 5.
! It's page 975. Galatians chapter 5, let me read you verse 1.
! For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit
again to a yoke of slavery. I'm not sure freedom is the first word that comes to people's mind
when they think of Christians. I think if we were going to do a poll on the streets today
and we asked people what impression they had of us, I'm guessing that the words that would
come up are words like careful, and for some of us uptight, a little stuffy. For others,
people might say, well they're quite happy, they're quite joyful, but probably way down
the list would come the word free. I might be wrong about that. I might hear this week
about a young man that I know who's decided to abandon his Christian faith. He did it back in
November, and a few weeks afterwards he told friends of mine that his giving up the Christian
faith was in verse 5. 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.
The book of Galatians is, I want to say, mainly about this doctrine of justification by faith.
Justification, being declared right with God, is a future event which is made present in our lives
today, right now, by faith. Justification is the verdict of God on the last day. It's going to be
on the day of judgment when we appear before him. God will say, he looks at us and he will say,
this is my child, this is my son whom I love, with whom I'm well pleased. That's what he'll say of all
those who are in Christ. There is no record of any sin here put to that account. She is clothed
in the righteousness of my son. He is innocent and pure and beautiful before me. You are justified.
And the greatest test about whether you have begun to understand this is, do you eagerly hope for that
righteousness? The verdict's been declared to us already. And do you eagerly wait for that last day?
And I don't think that's an easy thing to do.
If you're anything like me, I look at my own life and what do I see? I see failure and sin and lost
opportunities. As we worked through the early part of the service this morning and we hear the law of
God read. As we hear Jesus' summary of the law, that I'm to love the Lord my God with all my heart
and soul and mind and strength and I'm to love my neighbor as myself. That summary of the law.
I don't know about you, but I never think when I hear those words, I've done it this week.
I've nailed it this week. I've done great this week. None of us feel that. If you feel like that,
come and talk to me afterwards, all right? None of us think, I've done really well,
as Reuben read the Ten Commandments this week.
And to say, I look forward to that day when I will stand before him can only be said
when you are basing that on the death of Jesus Christ for me. So false teachers, false apostles
have come into Galicia and they've agreed, they've agreed that we become Christians by justification.
The problem comes after that. Because we're sinful people, because we sin every day, and if you don't
think you sin every day, well again you need to come and chat with me, our consciences condemn us.
We've got so much to condemn us for, haven't we? Satan accuses us and he's got so much to work with
in my heart and your heart. But here's the thing, the certain way back into slavery is what Paul calls
here the way of circumcision. I don't think any of you here are tempted to be circumcised this morning.
So what is he talking about? It's talking about the way of religious obligation,
which is beginning not to look at the death of Jesus,
but to look at what I've done, to look at my moral achievement or my religious sincerity,
or to look at anything that is within me. You see, in the cross of Jesus Christ, he gives us a freedom
which is from outside the world, and that stretches from eternity to eternity, and it comes directly from him.
And this freedom is being able to look at our own lives, and look at God, and say,
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,
and I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
And it is freedom,
because it is a process of transformation inside of us. It is completely different to moral reformation.
It is being redeemed and not improved.
It is true freedom.
And God does not set me free from my bad record in order for me to start achieving and building a better one.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
And I find it hard to describe. It is the purest form of freedom,
that I am absolutely and completely righteous before God,
and so are you through faith in Christ.
And so it is not the level of my surrender.
It is not the strength of my faith, thank goodness.
It is not the number of my prayers.
It is not the length of my obedience.
It is not the level of my purity,
nor is it the depth of my repentance.
But it is Christ and Christ alone who loved me and gave himself for me.
So you see, when I do something good,
when I've kept up with my New Year Bible reading plan,
and I'm up to date,
and when I do something good on those occasions,
when I do something good,
it doesn't change God's love for me.
He does not accept me anymore if I've had a good week.
And if I fail him,
it does not change his love for me.
He doesn't love me any less than he did before,
because through the Spirit, by faith,
we wait for the hope of righteousness.
We do not obey
because he will accept us more,
but because he will never leave us nor forsake us.
And so it is very possible, isn't it?
It's very possible to start out by faith,
to experience the grace of God,
and then suddenly to want to go back to the law.
To be thinking that God is in my debt.
I deserve what he gives me.
And we begin to think about what we might have given up.
And then we begin to compare ourselves horizontally with others,
and we resent that my life is not as good as their life.
Why hasn't God treated me like he's treating them?
You see, Jesus did not owe it to us
to die upon the cross.
Jesus did not deserve to die,
but he determines freely to go to the cross
out of the freedom of his own grace.
And the man nailed to the cross,
offering himself for us,
that is the freest action that the world has ever seen.
And that's why Paul says in verse 6,
in Christ Jesus,
neither circumcision or uncircumcision
is of any relevance,
but only faith
expressing itself through love.
They are remarkable words, aren't they?
How do you live the Christian life?
Somebody says,
how is it that you live the Christian life?
What does the Christian life look at?
Look at it.
There are five words
at the end of verse 6.
Faith working through love.
That's four words.
You might notice faith expressing itself through love.
But faith working through love.
Faith will express itself through love.
We are justified.
We are declared right with God
by faith alone.
By faith alone.
But if faith is real,
and if faith is genuine,
it will always be accompanied by love.
And so we're going to look at next week
from verses 13 onwards,
we're going to see,
here's the thing for the Galatians
and the false teachers.
They were saying,
you've been justified,
and you've got to make sure
you're accepted before God
through your religious observance,
through your acts.
And Paul says,
no,
it's the cross of Jesus Christ
which brings us in,
and it's the cross of Jesus Christ
which keeps us on track,
and it's the cross of Jesus Christ
that will bring us home to heaven.
It's the cross that brings you in,
it's the cross that keeps you on track,
it's the cross that will take you to heaven.
And in the end,
it is all of Christ.
And our freedom comes from the fact
that we are justified
the hope of righteousness.
Now how can the Holy Spirit
live in you and in me
with all the sin of our lives?
How can he live in us
with all the sin
and all the mess of our lives?
And it can only be
because we're justified.
How can we pray this morning?
How can we sing?
How can we live?
It's only because we've been justified.
And this is the gospel work
of freedom in us.
And Paul says,
do not budge,
do not move,
stand firm
in that freedom.
Secondly, and more briefly,
let's look at making slaves.
How does slavery happen to you?
How did it happen to the Galatians?
How does that happen to us?
Verse 2,
Paul says now,
I, Paul,
say to you
that if you accept,
if you receive circumcision,
Christ
will be of no advantage
to you.
I testify again
to every man
who accepts circumcision
that he's obligated,
that he is bound
to keep the whole law.
You are severed,
you are cut off
from Christ,
you who would be justified
by the law.
You have fallen
away from grace.
Four times there,
he mentions circumcision.
That cutting off
of the flesh.
Four times,
he talks about
that Jewish historic right
of the covenant.
The sign of the covenant.
A circumcision
that's got impeccable
religious pedigree.
And Paul says
in the starkest possible terms
that if you go ahead
and you receive circumcision,
remember they've come
from a pagan background,
and he says,
if you think that
by being circumcised
you keep going
as the people of God,
Christ
will be of no value to you.
You'll be severed,
you'll be cut off.
It's a play on words
from Christ.
You will have fallen
away from grace.
And you might think
that's a bit strange,
isn't it?
That's strange
in the light of the fact
that the apostle Paul
took Timothy
in Acts chapter 16
and Paul had him circumcised
when he joined
the mission team.
But the reason
is very simple.
Is that the teachers,
these new teachers,
they are saying
that the death of Jesus,
it is enough
to get you in,
yeah, okay,
but it is not enough
to help you grow
and to continue.
And they are insisting
on this impeccably fine
religious way
to help Jesus along.
And it's really important
for you and I
to see this
because false teaching
in the church
very rarely denies
that Jesus is the Son of God.
or it does not deny
that Jesus died
on the cross.
But what it does
is it says
that we would be safer
with God
if we just add
a little bit to that.
If we add
some religious practice
or some virtue
that we can do,
we add that
to what Jesus has done.
And it's the constant temptation
of my heart
and your heart.
The constant danger
throughout the history
of the church
has been to try
and complete
what Jesus has done.
To begin to operate
as if we've got something
to add to the ministry
of Jesus
on the cross.
And what we do
is we take
perfectly good things
in themselves
and we begin
to insist
that my effectiveness
and my usefulness
and my growth
as a Christian
depends
not on Jesus Christ
but on
that something else
in addition to Christ.
And Paul says here
everyone
who receives circumcision
is bound.
They are obligated
to keep the whole
of the law.
And I think
that's quite devastating.
Why is Paul
the apostle
making such a fuss?
I mean
all the teaching
of the Bible
all the teaching
of the gospel
hones in
on this one little point.
On this one
absurd
trivial
religious right.
And so in every age
there have been teachers
in the church
who've said
it's a very small thing.
why make such a fuss?
If you've been
on the eldership
in Galatia
in one of the churches
and there's teachers
of the law
who'd come along
and say
listen
we just need
to keep
certain feast days.
We need to abstain
from certain foods.
We need
just the
boys of the church
to be circumcised.
I wonder
what we'd have done.
Maybe we would have
welcomed it.
Maybe we would have
thought well it's an
alternative understanding
of Christian spirituality.
It's not my position
but I understand
where you're coming from
and it's not going to hurt
anyone else.
But what is really
at stake
when you do that?
A few years ago
I was working
upstairs in
Cafe Nero
at Ealing Broadway
and I began to notice
there were people
at the tables
at the cafe
in
Cafe Nero
who had
their Bibles opened.
I don't know if you've seen that.
And so what do you do
when you see somebody
with a Bible open?
You're so glad
you go over to them
and you say
you say it's quite as you can
I'm actually a Christian
it's a great book isn't it?
It's a great book.
And they were very very friendly
they began to talk to me
they began to talk about
the Lord Jesus
they found out I was a minister
they found out I came to this church
and they wanted to know about it
and we exchanged numbers.
They go to a Bible study
in central London
loads and loads of young people
20s and 30s
and it would be great
why don't you come along
why don't you bring
some of your people to come along?
And we began to engage
they began to ask
what I thought about different things
and then they began to ask
about baptism.
And what was really interesting
is they were part of a church
called the London
well it isn't the church
it's a sect
they're called the London
International Church of Christ
I don't know whether you've met them.
And what they're teaching was
was this really
when you boil down to it
that you could not be saved
unless you'd been fully baptised
by one of their authorised leaders.
You could not be
a Christian
you could not be a child of God
unless you had been
fully baptised
by one of their recognised leaders.
It was a gospel plus.
It was Jesus plus.
You've got to be baptised by us.
You've got to do what
we tell you to do.
And the Apostle Paul says
something very very simple
he says this
if you add something to Jesus
Jesus vanishes.
Christ plus circumcision.
Christ plus anything
leaves you with nothing.
And if you add circumcision to Christ
you're seeking to complete
the work of Jesus on the cross.
You cannot have Jesus
do half the work of saving us.
Either he does all the work
of saving us
or none at all.
And you see the way
that it works
look at verse 9
Paul says
a little leaven
leavens the whole lump.
And do you remember lockdown?
Those glorious days of lockdown.
Different things went there.
People got into making bread.
Remember that?
And everyone was making bread
and I didn't make it surprisingly.
But you get a little bit of yeast
don't you?
And you put it into the
pan pot.
And you put it into the dough
and it was amazing wasn't it?
The shapes that came out
before people knew
what they were doing?
You'd have these monsters
growing in the oven.
Because a tiny, tiny little bit of yeast
affects the whole dough.
The whole lump.
And it's exactly here.
The same here isn't it?
Paul says this tiny little thing.
This little bit of false teaching.
Doesn't deny who Jesus is.
Doesn't deny what he's done.
But you just need something extra.
And it ruins the whole lump.
The devil very, very rarely
goes for a full frontal attack
on the gospel.
But what the devil does
is he just adds
a little something to it.
He adds something fine to it
and the yeast spreads
through every part.
And it's very interesting
is that what he does
is the way that he does it
is he does it
through individual teachers.
Individual men and women.
Look at verse 10.
He says,
I have confidence in the Lord
that you will take
no other view than mine
and he who is troubling you.
I wonder whether he was there
when this was read.
It's an individual, isn't it?
He who is troubling you
and the one who is troubling you
will bear the penalty
whoever he is.
I mean, until now,
it's been a group of teachers.
But this gospel plus teaching
never enters a church
in some kind of abstract form.
This kind of gospel,
Jesus plus,
never enters,
just floats its way in.
It comes through individuals
and this individual is clearly,
isn't he,
an eminent person.
They know who he is
and he's teaching the gospel plus.
Paul earlier on has said,
I don't care if it's an angel
from heaven
but if he teaches another gospel,
whoever he is,
God will judge him.
Let him be accursed.
And you might think,
after all this kind of
what we've done,
kind of digging into Galatians,
that the gospel plus
is such a silly thing.
Why is it so tempting?
Why is it so tempting
for churches like us
just to add a little something
to the gospel?
It's because of verse 11.
The reason is
because it neutralizes
the scandal of the gospel.
The Christian gospel
begins by offending you.
It's why people don't just slide
into becoming Christians.
They need to feel
the offense of the gospel.
And if you have never been offended
by the cross of Jesus Christ,
you've not understood it.
Because the cross of Jesus Christ
comes to you and I
and says,
you are so far from God,
you are so far from God
that it required his son
to be slaughtered for you.
You are so lost,
you're so weak,
you're so rebellious
that nothing less
than the death of his own son
is enough to free us.
But the gospel plus message
comes to you and says,
well, it downplays the negatives
and it says,
you're not so radically lost.
And there are things
that you can do.
There are things
that are visible.
There are things
that are physical
that you can do
to show your sincerity
that can gain your salvation.
Is it not the role of religion
to make you more morally responsible?
Of course, the New Testament,
it does call us to good works,
doesn't it?
But our motivation
is the thing that demonstrates
our freedom or our slavery.
Do I do good works
to assure me of God's acceptance?
If I do good works
to assure myself of God's acceptance,
then loving other people
becomes a way of manipulating you
because I am loving you
so that I can build my account
with God.
And the problem
with living that way
is it is a life of slavery
because when something gets
in the way of my loving you,
I become blocked
and I become angry
or I become frightened
or I become depressed.
But when we act
on the basis of Jesus Christ,
then I am acting
out of the fact
that God has accepted me
and God loves me
and there is nothing
that I can do
that can change that.
And so I am free.
I am free to love
for the sake of love
because it is only
through Jesus Christ
and it is only
through the cross
of Jesus Christ
that I am brought in.
And it is only
through the cross
of Jesus Christ
that we are grown up
and it's only
through the cross
of Christ
that we are brought
to heaven.
it is gloriously liberating.
But I don't have
to be afraid of you.
I don't have to be afraid
of what people think of.
I don't have to be afraid
of failure
because the life I live,
I live by faith
in the Son of God
who loved me
and gave himself for me
and God could not
love me anymore.
And so for freedom,
Christ set us free.
Stand firm, therefore.
And do not submit again
to the yoke of slavery.
And all the people said,
Amen.
Let's pray.