I'm going to read a couple of two or three verses from Psalm 119 before we get started. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with all my heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to my selfish gain." And as you know, this goes on and on in Psalm 119 about His Word. Psalm 119, you know, about God's statutes and laws. Let's pray before we get started here. Father, we do thank you for your word and the depth of it and that we would delight in it, that we would cherish it, that we would heed it. And even this morning, we pray that through your spirit and your word that you would teach us this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, we started off in Galatians, Paul defending his apostleship, defending his authority, and he has to do that a lot in his life. And then he went on to explain the theology of the gospel that were sanctified. by faith alone, Christ alone. And then last week he gave a picture of what freedom and faith look like in telling the Galatians that you're not sons and daughters of Hagar. the slave woman, that you are sons and daughters of Sarah, the free woman, that you are free, he is telling the Galatians. And so today in chapter 5, he speaks about that freedom. And he really applies it to our lives. The whole book is a wonderful book. Galatians is a wonderful letter from Paul. Chapter 5 is, to me, an amazing chapter. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. And we're going to look at this a little. I'm not going to read the whole thing. I'm just going to read verse 1. And we'll look at the rest of it. But as we look at verse one, and we'll leave it to talk about verses two through 15, I have a lot of information. I've got pages and notes. I've got bullet points. But I want you to really remember verse one as we talk about it. And the other verses have much to do with it. So verse one, chapter five, if you're there in your Bibles, For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. We're not going to read every verse by verse like that, but this chapter, somebody I read said that it's really a summary of the last two chapters, or it's a summary of the whole book of Galatians. And in my mind, it can be a summary of a lot more, a lot more than that. For freedom, Christ has set us free. So Christ has set us free. That's a verb, and it's in the aorist tense. meaning that it was a one-time event that has been completed. Christ has set us free. And if I ask each of you what that means, that Christ has set us free, no doubt in my mind, each of you could give a really succinct answer to that question about the work of Christ. For freedom, Christ has set us free. The freedom is a noun. And if I ask you that question, you could give me an answer as well. But the impact of it. How does it really impact your daily life? How does it impact your thinking? You would say that positionally we're free. We're free from the power of sin. We're free from the penalty of sin. And we're free from, that's huge, but we're free from other things as well. And we're free to some things. But how does that really impact your lives? And I guess what I'm trying, I'm talking to myself, but does freedom really have great meaning to you? The freedom that we have in Christ really have great meaning for you. And he says, for freedom Christ has set us free, so we're to stand firm. And to stand firm is a military term. It means to keep alert, be on guard, for the enemy, be strong, but our freedom is fragile. We all know we cannot lose our salvation, but we can lose our freedom. And this has certainly happened in Galatia that Paul's addressing. He says, stand firm. do not submit to the yoke of slavery. But he says, do not submit again. And what he's saying here is, remember where you were, Galatians. You were pagans. You were idolaters. And he's really saying, Paul is saying that being idolaters, being pagans, is the same thing as being slaves to the law. So don't submit again to the yoke of slavery. Old Testament law as a means of justification is referring to the yoke of slavery. But the yoke during first century Judaism, for some reason that's a hard word for me to say, Judaism. The first century Judaism, they called the law a yoke too, the law of Moses, the Mosaic law, they called it a yoke, but they didn't necessarily combine it with being slaves to it. And in Acts, you know, when Peter is at the Jerusalem council, he refers to the law as a yoke, but that it's a yoke, that they and their fathers could not bear under. So we've seen, as we've gone through Galatians, we've seen Paul's frustration. You know, he was in anguish. He was perplexed. But now we're going to see Paul's anger in today's passage. The Judaizers were trying to convince the Galatians of something that was not of God, not from God. So in this passage, good morning. In this passage, Paul has three concerns for the Galatian church, and we'll cover those three in three different segments of the passage. But he's concerned that they're going to fall away, that they're going to be apostate. He's concerned, secondly, that they're not going to be able to persevere. And thirdly, he's concerned about their freedom through all this, but as it relates to their unity. And the lack of freedom has a great impact on the church and disunity in the church. We'll look at verses two through six. And again, this is, if you're adding circumcision, we've talked about this as I talked about redundance, which is not really, it sounds like a critical word, but there's repetitions, a better word in Galatians that if, I'm sorry. Thank you. I didn't even talk about this lesson with Penny. But if you add circumcision or if you add anything to the gospel, you take away from all of it. If you just do this one little thing, you'll be in right standing before God. You just need to do this one little thing and it's really almost a cancer for that person and it can spread through a church as well. So verses two through six. And slavery's our natural state, our old nature as slaves. So it's not real surprising that we can fall back into that. Okay, verses two through six. 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." There's a lot in those verses. So Tim Keller said you can't add to Christ without subtracting from him. And it's not just a little bit here or there. If you add anything to Christ, you subtract all of Christ. It's either by grace or it's by the law. But being circumcised or adding anything is saying Christ is not enough, is what Keller's talking about, and that his work is insufficient. So Christ will be of no advantage to you if you're trying to do his work for him, so to speak, be of no advantage to you. Kind of like the elder brother in the prodigal son, that story, the elder brother felt like the relationship with his father was something he deserved. All the work he had done on the farm, the ranch, or whatever all the father had. And he just felt like it was deserved. And I was reading that part, I was thinking of just nothing but the blood of Jesus in the psalm. There's nothing. but the blood of Jesus. But in verse 4, Paul gives a stark warning. It's really a sobering warning. Margie mentioned this last week, brought it up. You are severed from Christ, you who have fallen away. But look at verse 4, and you are severed from Christ. Well, who is severed from Christ? You, who would be justified by keeping the law. It's you. who have fallen from grace. It's you that's adding something to the gospel to be justified, to be in right standing before God. So, falling away from grace is someone that no longer is relying on God's grace for their salvation. You know, we just, in terms of our assurance of salvation, a lot of us can kind of struggle with that occasionally. But if we ever think, and I really don't think anybody would think this, I'm not sure, but if we think we have to earn our salvation, or even to maintain our salvation, It's really all by grace. If we think we have to earn it, then we would live in fear that we could unearn it. And that's the issue there. But severed from Christ, it may have been the case. That's strong wording there. And it could be that some of the Galatians were, in fact, severed from Christ. But I think in Hebrews 6 and 1 John, if they fall away, they never really trusted in Christ for their salvation in the first place. We see in Romans 6 that they've been They've tasted the heavenly gift. They've tasted the Word of God. Just being with believers, they've tasted these things, but they fall away. They never were believers in the first place. And 1 John says, they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. So, again, stark warning from Paul, but then in verse 10 that we'll get to in a little bit, he states his confidence in the Galatians. But verse 5 and 6 is kind of a bit of a jump there from verses 2, 3, and 4. He talks about a faith that works in verses five and six. I'll just read those again. 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. Eagerly wait. Eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. And that hope is a sure hope. You know, like we'd see in Hebrews 11.1, it's a sure hope of the righteousness to come. And it's not a righteousness that we have. We don't have a perfect. We have the perfect righteousness of Christ now. Positionally, we are righteous. but you know your own lives, you know your sin in your life, but you know God's growing you up. He's making you more into the likeness of his son, but this is eagerly awaiting the perfect righteousness that we'll have when Christ returns or Judgment Day. So, that's the hope of righteousness. To eagerly wait for it, I had to stop and think about that and think about kind of my heart, my life, my daily thinking in terms of eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness of Christ to return. It's the same word in that verse, eagerly wait, as we see in Romans 8.23. We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies. Now, some of us, maybe older folks, groan louder than others. And we eagerly, yeah, hands. And we do eagerly wait. I mean, it's just an incredible thing to think about our new bodies. But this verse talks about the moral condition. of righteousness, our moral condition. And it's just like Paul as he's just layman-ing in Romans chapter 7, talking about his own life. He says, wretched man that I am, who would deliver me from this body of death? And thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. But one of the books I read said there's a comfort and an exhortation in this eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness. The comfort is that in our present struggle in life, And we all relate to our present struggles in our life and the things that we do we don't want to do and things we don't do that we should do and that sort of thing. But our present struggle is not a sign that we are lost. We hate the sin in our life. We're not content with it. It's just, we repent of it. And we thank God for His forgiveness in Christ. But we don't become paralyzed by it. The exhortation is we must hunger for righteousness. And that's the one I really had to think about. You know, Jesus in chapter 5 just said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. So we hunger while we wait, while we eagerly wait. It's not like I'm preaching more than I'm teaching, but do you really hunger? Do you really hunger for it? Again, I talk to myself. So anyway, how do we hunger for righteousness? I'm going to read Galatians 2.20. Sorry. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith. and the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." So how do we do it? We live by faith. We live by God's power, His strength, His grace, as we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness that we have. And I didn't take us back to the verse, but that's what it says in verse 5. For through the Spirit, by faith, We ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. And then verse six says, neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. So... It counts for nothing, circumcision or uncircumcision. For the Jew or for the Gentile, it counts for nothing. Whether it's religious activity of the Jew or the idolatry of the Gentile, uncircumcision, circumcision, they count for nothing. It adds nothing. It's only faith working through love. So when God gives us faith, he gives us a kind of faith. He gives us a faith that loves Him and loves others. That's how He changes our heart into a heart of flesh. He gives us, he changes our affections, and I like that, I always like that term, affections, but our affection for him, the father, and our affection for each other. So, Paul's first concern was them falling away. His second concern is their perseverance, and I'm going to read 7 through 12. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves." I didn't read that with the right inflections, but the ESV is an exclamation mark after that. Same in the Swink version, Hunter? No exclamation mark? Yeah, and we'll get to that, as to really what that means. And cut off is good. Well, could be good. Mutilate? Okay, what version do you have, Marge? No, no, your Bible version is... Not verse, version. What's your translation? So Paul, in so many of his epistles, he gives an athletic illustration and he does that here. You were running well. Who cut you off? You were on the mark, and who cuts you off? Who has bewitched you? That's in chapter three, but who has hindered you from obeying the law? I think Paul, he probably knows who, but maybe not. In verse, that's verse seven, verses eight and nine, Paul is absolutely certain that it didn't come from the one who calls you. It didn't come from God. Who called? Galatians 1.6 says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are running and are turning to a different gospel. And the called in there is Kaleo. I'm not sure of the pronunciation of that, but receiving the blessings of God's salvation. It's his calling in our order of salvation that God calls. So he said, it didn't come from the one who calls you. And then he talks about the leaven. It's the leaven of legalism that he's talking about. And just a pinch of leaven or a pinch of legalism just destroys the gospel. It's either all or nothing. So we see in verse 10 that Paul was, I'll read it again, but I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty. But he's confident, and who's he confident in? He's confident in the Lord. But he has a confidence in them. in terms of where they are in their lives. He talks about cutting off, or emasculation, or mutilation. So he says that, it's just like Chuck preaching a sermon, and he's hit a point that's kind of doing, you know, a spiritual surgery on your heart. It's kind of hitting hard, but then he kind of puts salve on it after that, and that's what Paul did here. He talks about emasculation, and then he says he's confident that they would come to their senses, basically. But he's also confident that whoever's doing this, particularly the ringleader, whoever's doing this is going to have a strong penalty as well. But anyway, it's Christchurch. Penny and I became Christians in our 30s, and we went to a Methodist church. I was immediately put in a position as a new believer. I had an excitement and a love for everybody. Anyway, I won't go into testimony here, but I was put in a position called the Pastor Relations Committee Chairman. that had to do with the pastor and whether the pastor relations and whether, you know, how long does he stay there and that sort of thing. And anyway, I experienced some really troubling things, not from the outside of wanting to go into it. But you do not mess with Christ Church. And I've always had a strong sense, because of what I went through in that time as a baby, But I went through that, very protective of Christ's church. Every denomination is messed with, including the PCA denomination, but there's strong, strong warnings about that. So in verse 12, we've talked about that a bit, but it could be that they would just be cut off from the church. cut off from the covenant, but it could be the other. You know, if you're going to cut your foreskins to be justified, you might as well go the full whatever. Actually, I had to, anyway, I didn't know what emasculate was. I had to Google that to see what it was. So anyway, I did read somewhere where Christians don't know when to be offensive. We don't want to be offensive, do we? But there are times that maybe we need to be offensive, and I think Paul's example here is one of those, God's Word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, say it out loud. No, no, no, it's not. You're really thinking about it, Matt. So Paul was concerned about them falling away. He was concerned about their perseverance. But number three, he was concerned about their freedom, but their unity and how their freedom impacts their unity. Galatians 13 says, for you were called to freedom. again called brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. And it's just a great passage. So we are given freedom. There are lots of freedoms we have. We'll go over some of those in a few minutes. But we're not to use our freedom to satisfy the desires of our flesh. There's a responsibility that goes along with our freedom. It's kind of like the free love of the 60s that a lot of us older people can remember. There was no freedom in that. It really took them into bondage. There was no responsibility associated with that freedom. But in our freedom, we have lots of good responsibility. Romans 6-1 says, are we to continue in sin? that grace may abound, and Paul says, by no means. He frees us from sin. He doesn't, from the power of sin. He doesn't, or from sin fully with Christ taking all that on, but he doesn't free us to sin. So he knew the license, that license feeling free to do whatever, posed a threat to the Galatians. But it also has been posing a threat ever since then. It posed a threat during the Reformation. You all know antinomianism, against the law, do whatever you want. That term, I think I've read this, was coined by Martin Luther. And John Calvin also had a problem dealing, he didn't have the problem, but he had to deal with antinomianism back in that day. But it's a problem for us today as well. Penny and I went to a SUNSHIP conference. SUNSHIP back in that day was a little controversial. This was 25 years ago or so. And I just visibly witnessed a lot of freedom. I don't mean sin, but it's hard to describe. But we ended up breaking into small groups, and our group was about six or seven people, and one of them was by himself. He was a PCA pastor from Pennsylvania, fairly young. And this was after several days of the conference, and he just kind of lowered his head and he said, I just don't get it. I just don't get it. I don't think that's uncommon for us in a lot of ways. We can attach slavery to our lives in different ways. It could be somebody that thinks, you know, can't believe Chip doesn't wear a tie or something, something small, you know. Did you, is you the one that thought that, Betty, or are you making that up? But anyway, we, What's hard for me to understand in that freedom? And sonship had a lot of good things, by the way. What's hard for me to understand is that we are new creatures in Christ, and He has changed our affections. And I don't know how we would come to a place, and some of y'all could explain it to me probably, of thinking I'm free to do whatever. But yet, that's very common. How could you be made anew given the affections that God's, the freedom that he's given us? And we love his word because he's changed us. And yet, how could you get away from the responsibility of obeying his word? I mean, he who loves me, or he who has my commandments and obeys them, it is he who loves me. and he is loved by my father. So, if we love him, we would want to keep his commands. I'll ask Chuck to explain that to me later, how people get into, falling into that license to do whatever they want to do. So, I'll skip over some things here, but I do want to say that the word serve in verse 13, Oh, but through love serve one another. And that word means to be a slave. And like from Philippians 2, we're to have the same mindset as Christ, who humbled himself unto death and was a servant. And so we're to have that same mindset. So we're free to serve. And I just think back in Joshua, the last chapter of Joshua. Just when I was really young in my faith, I just wanted to march onward, Christian soldiers, you know, and he said, as for me and my household, we'll serve the Lord. Verse 14, it's interesting, Paul mentions the second great commandment, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So someone may ask, Where it's loving God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. But he just mentions the second great commandment in here. But if you are loving your neighbor as yourself, that's an expression of loving God, if that's your motivation to love your neighbor. So Charles Spurgeon, This has to do with not being under the law, but to fulfill the law, we have a responsibility. Charles Spurgeon said, the law is not above the Christian. It is under a Christian. It is for him to walk on, to be his guide. We are not under law, but under grace. The law is good and excellent if it keeps its place. The law cannot justify But it plays a part in our sanctification. He didn't say that last part. But anyway, I said this already. Even though we're free from the power of sin, we don't always want to serve each other. It doesn't mean that our spiritual condition is just absolutely rotten. I remember, this was recently, an elderly couple, kind of homebound, and the sign-ups for taking meals. And this was a young girl in the church, and I'm sure that she didn't know these folks at all. And just seeing her sign up for that, It was edifying for me. I didn't talk with her, it was online, but it was just edifying to me knowing that we did that. So that's one thing that encourages ourselves. Again, we're talking about freedom, not legalism. But as we serve one another in love, it's a great example to see one another in that. So we're going to embrace our freedom, and these will go real quickly here, but we're to protect our freedom as well. And that's to be, we can be influenced from the outside, or I mentioned our old nature, we can be influenced from within to fall into slavery. So we need to protect our freedom. When you think about the Israelites, in Egypt and slavery for 400 years. I don't know how many generations that is. And they're set free from that. And they're in the desert, and their gospel was preached to them in the desert. And they wanted to go back to what they saw as the comforts of slavery. And anyway, that can happen to us as well. I mentioned about how somebody dresses in the church. You could be enslaved by your feelings about somebody else. what we put in the new sanctuary and what we don't put in the new sanctuary. There's just lots of different traps, I'll say, that we can fall in. But we don't want to be enslaved by our own do's and don'ts. Our personal preferences can be enslaving to us. So we're going to embrace the law. We're going to protect the law. I mean, we're going to protect our freedom, not the law. We don't embrace the law. We love the law. The law is fine. The law, talking about the curse, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. The law is not the curse. The curse is our inability to keep the law, and the curse is the penalty of our not keeping the law, which we can't do, and that's what Christ did for us. We embrace freedom, we protect freedom, and we express our freedom. And it could be in that eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness is an expression of freedom. Christ's return. And that can be, maybe that needs to be intentional for us to train our minds to think in the reality and the truth of Christ's return and looking forward to that and our perfect righteousness And then it's expressed in love. We've talked about it, that faith has a face, and it's loving one another. So when God changes our hearts, he gives us a new home, he gives us a new family, and really just a new way of life, a totally new way of life. So that brings us to the last one, that we're to use our freedom. And again, verse 13, we don't use it in a way to do whatever we want to do. We use it to serve one another. And I thought, because this question comes up occasionally, but the next time somebody asks you, what is God's will for my life? No matter what age they are, what is God's will for my life? It's to use your freedom to serve others. And you'll be right every time. They may be looking for something else, but you'll be right if you respond that way. The only reason I'm looking back is because I keep thinking of things that I I just skipped huge areas of this, but we're going to finish in just a second. But in terms of embracing our freedom, that was number one. I don't know that I even covered it because I remember reading this phrase that Christ is the great abolitionist. He's the one that sets us free. What are we free from? We're free from the curse of the law. And again, I mentioned the law is good, the law is holy, it's just the curse of the law is not keeping it and the penalty for it. And we're free from spiritual death, the penalty of sin, but God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places of Christ. And we're free from the fear of death. Just knowing where we stand with God, you know, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We know where we stand with God. Again, He humbled Himself unto death, and He's risen, and we're united with the risen Christ. We're free from condemnation. No condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. We're free from the power of sin. He's given us His Spirit and He's given us a means of grace to wear Sin doesn't have its power that it had before with the Spirit and the means of grace that He's given us. We're no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness, free from the authority of Satan. I'm not going to read that. But free from fear of others. That's a big one for a lot of us, to remember that our identity is in Christ, that we're loved and accepted by Him. I may have mentioned before, a large PCA church, senior pastor, was kind of taking hits from a lot of different directions. And he just kind of lowered his head. I was with him when he just kind of lowered his head and he said, I know what Christ thinks about me. I know who I am in him, you know, and it wasn't a rationale. It's something for us to remember. So we're free from those things, but we're free to serve one another and to inherit all that Christ has purchased for us. Things in chapter four in Galatians or in Ephesians 1, lots of places. Excuse me, Larry. So I'm just going to give one. We're behind, but so we're to embrace our freedom, protect our freedom, express our freedom, and use our freedom. I'm going to mention one brief takeaway, maybe kind of odd to you that I would just say this, but for freedom, Christ has set us free. for freedom Christ has set us free. That's just verse 1a, and it's huge. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. for the freedom that we have in Christ that we would understand it and love it and embrace it and protect it and use it within this community, which we see evidence so many times here at Wayside. So we thank you that you do have us forever in your hand. You love us and we look forward to worshiping you in this next hour. And I pray that we would do that in a pleasing way to your heart. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.