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Okay, we're going to finish up today in our series Paul's sort of summation of his arguments against legalism. Now, legalism is a word I've employed. It's not in the text. We've brought it into the text to help understand that there was, in the day of Paul, a first century version of legalism. It masqueraded as Judaism, but really it was perversion of what Judaism was supposed to do. Pharisaism was a perversion of the Old Testament. Now, legalism is bigger than that. Legalism reappears again and again and again in the history of mankind. In fact, it's most men's. In fact, I think it's all mankind's first religious impulse to believe that you're accepted by God based on what you do. Now last week I tried to make a distinction that being a legalist is not being more is a legalist is not somebody that is merely more conservative than you are. That's a travesty of the use of the term. A legalist is a person that subscribes to the notion that they will, in the end, stand on their own two feet before God, that somehow God is pleased with our efforts to please Him. Last week, we left off with Paul's statement in Galatians, chapter 5, verse 6, that goes like this. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Now. There's kind of a natural breakpoint there, but now Paul is just going to return to the subject of the dangerous situation in which the Galatians is. Remember, this is a summary. He's going to give three very quick exhortations, and I'm going to cover them very quick. But he's going to return to the Galatians' plight, and he's going to give them an exhortation based on track and field, then one based on the call, and finally based on a then-current proverb. So let's take a look at them. They're found in verses 7, 8, 9, respectively. In verse 7, he uses a word picture, like I said, from the world of track and field. He says, you were running a good race who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth. What Paul is saying is the Judaizers, they are not co-runners. They are like men who have put a trip line across the track. Or they physically step onto the track so their bodies become an obstruction. Paul's point is that the false teachers are not co-runners with the Galatians. Paul's second exhortation, next verse, is in verse 8, he says, that kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. Now, in a sense, he's being awfully kind to call circumcision or the doctrines of legalism a persuasion. But that's what he means by persuasion. And when he says, the one, the one who calls you, he's talking about God. So what he is saying here in an indirect way is that the persuasion does not come from God. It comes from another source. It is more hellish than it is heavenly. Let's move on now very quickly to the third exhortation, a proverb, verse 9. A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. In other words, he's saying big problems, and this will be a big problem, but it appears to have a little beginning. Or as we would say today, we're familiar with this phrase, one bad apple ruins the whole bushel. That's what he's saying, one bad apple. One iota of legalism added to the gospel will ruin the whole thing. Now we come, and I will slow down a little bit, we come to the Apostle's optimism about the Galatians. This is the first time he's ever communicated optimism about what the eventual outcome will be in this crisis in the Galatian churches. And he says, let's read it, verse 10, I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. Now this is an insight, I think, into how Paul views and how we ought to also never lose our faith and never quit being optimistic, and how we ought to view struggles in the Christian life. Struggles with belief, and there's certainly a struggle with belief here, and struggles with behavior, and as we're going to see there's struggles with behavior here, and finally struggles with others. On the screen behind me right now, I'd like to have the verses that some would point to as evidence that the Galatians were actually losing their salvation. Like chapter 1, verse 6. Paul says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you. Or 4.11, I fear for you that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. Or 4.20. how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone because I am perplexed about you. Or 5.4 where Paul says, you are alienated from Christ and you have fallen from grace. Now I don't want to go down this road too far because I think it's not Paul's main point here. But I want you to see this is a practical outworking, this single verse is a practical outworking of what Paul teaches explicitly elsewhere. And it's found in the teachings of Jesus, Paul and Peter. And it's just this simple teaching that God will preserve his own. Now God will use means to preserve his own, and it doesn't diminish the severity of the problem at all. It's a severe problem, and it might take them quite a long time to work their way through this, but he knows the battle belongs to the Lord. And this teaching is sometimes called, not originally, but eventually it came to have this belief that Christians can be optimistic in spite of problems, especially when we see problems in a brother or a sister's life. This has come to be known historically as a teaching entitled, The Perseverance of the Saints. Now, it can be cheapened. It can be trivialized so that it means nothing more than once saved, always saved. You've heard people say that. This doctrine does not teach that you don't have to walk wisely in Christ, or that you don't have to think Christianly, or you don't have to listen and repent, or that you don't have to resist temptation. Paul's sterner language that I just read to you shows you that as an apostle, as a counselor in the gospel, that he takes the problems of Galatia with the utmost seriousness. The threats will not be easily overcome. But Paul knows God will work his work. And so therefore, Paul remains full of faith. He's optimistic. Now, God will use means. Now, what means will God use to take his people that he has quickened through faith? What means will he use? Well, if I were Paul, of course, why would I be writing that letter if I didn't believe that God would use the letter to illuminate the churches of Galatia? But he may use other. In those days, letters were hand-delivered. He may take the apostolic delegate who delivers the letters from church to church to church, and he may use those. But Paul believes that even though the battle may rage on for a long time, it is God's battle. And God will, in the end, God will win all of his battles. And so I tell you again, I don't think this doctrine is taught explicitly here. This is just a good example of how a man reacts to problems who really believes in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. It's not taught explicitly here, but why else would Paul, when he sees the situation painted so darkly in the passages I read you, now why is he so optimistic that says, I believe that everything will be fine with you? It is taught explicitly elsewhere, by the way. Peter says, believers are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. And Jesus speaks in John chapter 10 about his sheep listening to his voice, and that he knows them, and that they will hear him and follow him, and they will have eternal life, and no one will ever snatch them out of his hand. And then that's not the only thing he says, my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one can snatch them out of my father's hand. Now I'd be tempting to go on a little bit more and talk about this doctrine, how trials are absolutely no game, no game in the Christian life. They're deadly serious. If you're involved in teaching or preaching or counseling, people's problems are really serious. However, There is no Christian counselor, elder, preacher, deacon who has any reason to despair because the battle always is the Lord's and the Lord has promised that he will keep his own. And that is taught here, I believe, implicitly and it's in the face of what looks like otherwise extremely desperate facts and circumstances. And then Paul says in verse 11, and I'm coming now to some of the better parts of the passage, He says in verse 11, brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. Now, this has always been a mystery, and it is somewhat of a mystery to me. I think I understand it. But here is a passage where, I mean, here is a book where all through he's been accusing the false teachers of preaching circumcision. You would think that he would never be accused of that? Why is he defending that he might have preached circumcision? So I need to explain here maybe in Paul's life, because he is a complex man, and in our lives we often make the distinction between expediency and principle. Now let me explain what I meant. Paul did circumcise sometimes. In Acts chapter 16 you have the story of Paul taking his son in the faith, a man named Timothy, and he circumcised him. But why did he do that? Was the issue legalism? No, it was expediency. He knew that by circumcising Timothy before he went out on a great missionary journey, that it would facilitate it, make the gospel proclamation easier. Nothing was at stake in the doctrine of Christ or the sufficiency of Christ. And so based on expediency, he would circumcise sometime. Now, if that's true, then here's what the false teachers did. They came in and they said, I told you. I told you, Galatians. Paul preached circumcision. Paul simply says this. If I preach circumcision, then why do the legalistic Jews literally try to kill me in every city? Come on. And if he opened up his robes, which he will do at the very end of the book, he will say, I have on my body the marks of persecution of the legalistic Jews. He could open up his robe and say, that one comes from Antioch, and this one comes from Cilicia, and this one comes from Crete. So, he didn't preach circumcision not in the way the Judaizers preached circumcision. Let's just take one last quick tour of what Paul probably taught in every single circumcision, in every single... I'm having a hard time here, aren't I? Here's what I want to say. I have five little points here about what Paul probably taught in a synagogue, which would raise the ire of some Jews, especially if they were legalistic in their interpretation of the law. Number one, Paul taught that the Mosaic law in covenant was not eternal. The Jew thought that the law was the highest and the best and the most eternal expression of the will of God. The Jews, some of them, even taught that God himself meditated on Torah from all of eternity. What does Paul say about the duration of the covenant of Sinai? He says this, Galatians 3.19, what was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law wasn't eternal. It was there for a period. It was added until. Number two, he taught the law was like a junior instructor fit only for a time of spiritual immaturity or infancy. Spiritual maturity, the Judaizers taught, comes by law. But Paul says spiritual maturity doesn't come by law, it comes by Christ. And he teaches that again in Galatians, chapter 4, verse 3. So also, he says, when we were children, see that, in a stage of immaturity, we were in slavery under the basic principles of this world. But then when the time had fully come, in other words, when God said it's time to step now into maturity, then God sent His Son. Number three, Paul taught that the law was not chiefly given to show man his righteousness, but rather to reveal his sin, to show his spiritual bankruptcy, and to show the righteousness of God was higher than what men thought. In a synagogue in Pisidian Antioch in Acts chapter 13, Paul preaches this way, and he says the law can't justify. He says through Jesus, everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from the law of Moses. Now, if you're a Judaizer and you hear that in a sermon, that's going to raise the hackles on the back, whatever they are, the hair on the back of your neck. Those are fighting words. Number four, Paul taught, and this one would really make their blood boil, that the law doesn't curb sin, it actually incites sin. The argument is found in Romans chapter 7. I'm just going to quote one verse from Romans chapter 7 that I think embodies the argument. But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded in the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire." Now how is that possible? Or you might say this, big deal, the Bible says a lot of things incite sin. The Bible says loose women incite sin. The Bible says too much alcohol incite sin. The Bible says certain kinds of speech or bad company incite sin. And that's true, the Bible does say that. But Paul said something different. He said the law of God actually could be used to incite sin. The law which the Jew believed curbed sin and even had the power to conquer sin. But what Paul teaches in Romans chapter 7 is that sin was so arrogant and so powerful before Christ that in its arrogance it could say, I'll show you who's in charge here. When you're meditating on the law and you read that commandment about not being covetous, I will even use that very commandment and I will make you covetous. I will incite your covetous. I will take the passions of your lush and passions and everything and I will use the law and then you'll know that I'm the boss. Sin is the boss. Now he taught that about the law. And if you're a Judaizer, you believe the law has the power to conquer sin and he says no, the law is impotent. It can't do anything. In fact, sin can use the law to actually provoke sin in your life. And number five. Paul said no one really knew what obedience to the law really looked like until Jesus came. A Pharisee of that day would say something like this. You want to know what righteousness according to the law looks like? Look at me. Pretty much what the righteousness of the law looks like is me. Paul says to the Philippians before he became a Christian that touching legalistic righteousness, when he was a Pharisee, he believed he was faultless. Faultless! Can you believe that? This is right after he came back from slitting Christians' throats. Paul writes this, since they, this is by the way in Romans chapter 10, since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God, speaking of the Jews, they didn't know the righteousness that comes from God, and they sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness, for Christ is the end of the law. Now, not end in termination. The Greek word there is teleos, from which we get telescope. It means end in the sense of the goal of the law. The goal of the law. You would never really know what righteousness ever looked like by looking at the Apostle Paul, even in his glory days. Or Joseph of Arimathea, or any man. Because no one really knew what righteousness according to the law would really look like until the goal of the law came. And Jesus Christ was a different kind of man than any Pharisee that ever walked the face of the earth. To put it another way, you could say Paul's teaching was that the law existed to reveal every man's sin, but one man's righteousness. The law justified no man, but it did justify one man, the man of God's own choosing. And dost thou ask who that might be, Luther says? Christ Jesus, it is he. No Judaizer wanted to hear that kind of stuff. That was rubbish to the Judaizers. So did Paul preach a legalistic circumcision? Well, he said, no one knew what the law looked like, really, truly, until Christ came. He said that the law itself was so weak that sin actually could use it to incite and prompt sin in even the most holy man or woman's life. The law was given to show man's inability. The law was, at best, a junior instructor for a time of spiritual and ethical immaturity. And finally, the law was temporary, and it was meant to be superseded by another. However, the Judaizers taught this. Now get this, because this will explain the next verse. Because Paul will unleash an invective, a curse upon them, that you will say, that's not kind. That's not fair. He's not being nice. The Judaizers taught this. The law is eternal, therefore there's no room for Christ. It was a way to spiritual maturity. It reveals men's abilities before God. It will curb and it will conquer sin. And it is manifested in my own righteousness, which God will be compelled to honor when I walk in to the doors of the kingdom. And so Paul pronounces upon them now in the next verse a reckless sounding curse, which is a play on the word and the practice of circumcision. Let's look at verse 12. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and they would emasculate themselves. You say, is that really in the Bible? Yes, it's really in the Bible. These words are remarkable because they are so fierce and they're so explicit. And you might ask, is this warranted? Well, if I've done my job, yes, last week and this week and in the weeks prior with Alex, you would understand the appropriateness of this condemnation. Legalism is always, 100% of the time, damning. And these people who have come in and said, we understand Moses better than Paul, are leading the Galatians into sin. They are leading Christ's little ones into sin. And what did Jesus say about leading his little ones into sin? He said it would be better for them if a millstone had been tied around their neck and they would be cast into the depths. I would remind you that kindness does not exclude clarity. In Paul's book of Romans, he tells us that in God there is a kindness. He says, consider the sternness or the severity and the kindness of God. So there is a kind of clarification, even in God's kindness, that at times might strike us as pure sternness. Well, that's what you're going to see here. Later on, we're going to see one of the fruits of the Spirit is kindness. But it isn't a sentimental, mushy kind of kindness that we think it is today in the 21st century. There is a clarity in apostolic kindness. He is telling exactly what the Galatians need to hear, that those men, if they follow those men, there is no hope for them. And now here comes, I think, the best part. The best part. Paul will now, in the next verse, which begins in verse 13, Paul will now, contrary to human nature, contrary to reason, every other thing, Paul will do this. He's going to show how the gospel is more ethical and more transformational than the law. Why a legalistic understanding of the law will ultimately distort our humanness, and it will wreck relationships. And why the gospel really makes us more human than the law, and how it makes it possible for us to do truly, truly good works. This is what everybody says the gospel leads to, normlessness, a freedom to do anything you want. And because of that, because of that great fear, Paul will now teach the Galatians, you think the law is ethical? You haven't seen nothing until you see gospel freedom. Because that can really bear fruit in a man and a woman's life. Let's take a look at that passage beginning in the 13th verse. I'll just read the balance of our text for today. You, my brothers, were called to be free. But don't use that freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you do, if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by one another. Now to understand what Paul is saying here by freedom, I would first ask you to forget any modern notions of freedom. Just forget it. Just forget it. How you would normally use that in normal everyday conversation. What Paul is going to do first of all is he's going to try to, I'm going to try to show what Paul means here by simply putting a chart up behind me and showing you that in some respects, and this is where you're going to have to really put your thinking caps on, in some respects law, freedom is the opposite of law, but never in the sense in which it would mean lawlessness. Never in the sense in which it means lawlessness. Now put your thinking caps on. I did charts like this last week. I want you to consider this. Paul is going to talk about freedom. Some Bibles translate it liberty. But I believe freedom and liberty, again, are a metonymy, where freedom stands for the totality of what happens to a person when they accept Christ. They are regenerated from within. The Spirit dwells within. And out of that new nature comes a faith, hope, and love. But it's not by human striving. It's all a creative act of God's Spirit. Now, he uses the word freedom to capture all that in a single word. Now let's take a look and compare law, not legalism, please. This is another distinction we've got to make. Legalism is the twisting of the law. Now I believe in this contrast I'm going to treat law as a good thing. The law is holy, just, and good, Paul says in Romans chapter 7. Law, it is a command from without, but with no inclination within. What is gospel freedom then? It is a command from without. Still there are commands, but with the power and the inclination within by the Spirit. Law, let's go back over to the law side, is like a unfunded mandate. Now let me give you an example of what an unfunded mandate is for those of you who keep track of politics back in the 80s and the 90s. The federal government, this is sort of a state's rights versus federal power and jurisdiction issue. But back in the 80s, the federal government passed a lot of laws or mandates. And it was expected that the states, like Indiana, Colorado, New Jersey, whatever, would be responsible to enforce those laws. Now, these laws came down from above, and they just kept heaping them on the states. Well, the states, at first, they just accepted it. They said, all right, well, all right, we've got to enforce this law, which means we've got to train our police force about the new law, and our judges, and the prosecutors, and the defenders. And it loads up our criminal systems, and it costs us money. But then comes another law, and another law. And finally, there was a states' rights revolt. I don't know if you know about it. It wasn't like a civil war. There wasn't guns. ammo and bullets but the state said wait I'll stop it we want no more unfunded mandates you want us to enforce these laws give us money give us money now let's take a look at law and freedom in that in light of that illustration the law is like an unfunded mandate but gospel freedom is a funded mandate the laws like an outside pressure without an inside force Gospel freedom is an outside pressure, but with an inside force okay with an inside force Or let's put another one that's not on the screen behind the law says do this and live don't do this or be cursed But it gives us neither hands nor feet Freedom says fly and it gives us wings now off in the distance I'm driving down the road I see a farmer in the back of his house and he is pumping on an old-fashioned pump handle so fast I cannot believe a man can make his arm move that fast. But I can only see him at a distance. And as I come around the curve and I come closer to the farmer's house, I see that what I thought was a man was just a metal cutout of a man. He has clothes on. They've painted his face. He's just the figure of a man, but he's all dressed up. And his arm is sort of articulated. It has little rivets in here and up here. And his arm, his hand is wired to the pump handle. And it's pumping like crazy and there's water coming out of that spigot like you can't believe. Hundreds of gallons in an hour. And I come to realize it's not an ordinary well. It's a very rare kind of well. Some of you have heard of it. It's called an artesian well. And really the water comes up with such force you don't have to pump it. But rather the water comes out through the pump, it pumps the pump handle and the pump handle pumps the man. Well, that's like the gospel. Gospel freedom comes with its own power. It is a funded mandate. The water of faith, as Jesus once called it, is a self-sustaining supply. I read this passage last week. It's appropriate to read it again. Jesus says, the man who believes in me, out of his heart will come what? Little teeny droplets of living water? No, rivers of living water. And then John adds, and he said this, he said this to indicate the spirit by which they would one day receive. There is a sense in which freedom and law, however, they are different, like I just described them, but there's a sense in which they are friends. There's a sense in which they are friends. If freedom makes the Christian anti-law, well, let's put it this way. Let's look at it as if it were two extremes. Over here, the law means legalism, as is the threat of the Galatian church. Anytime the law smells like, looks like, and is legalism, then the Christian every time is anti-law. Get it? All right. But there's another extreme. Anytime Christian freedom smells like, looks like, and is impiety, immorality, the freedom to do whatever we please, then the Christian is pro-law. Because freedom is not the freedom to sin. This is the old perennial problem of Christianity. How does the Christian in Christ relate to that old Mosaic law in a Christian's life? What place does the old Mosaic law have? And I think one of the best models I could give you is the model that Paul has already used in Galatians, that the law is like, in some respects, like a junior instructor. to get you ready for better things. Now, let's say I want to be a great golfer. Let's just say that. In fact, I already believe I am, and I'm speaking in character, and I'm in a role. There's a sense in which I already believe I'm a pretty good golfer. But let's say I want to be a great golfer, and my father hires Tiger Woods, because my father is a very wealthy man. He has influence. So I show up, not at just some sort of golf course over in Aurora. No, I go to Carmel, and I show up on Pebble Beach Golf Course, and I'm expecting Tiger Woods. But I think maybe Tiger Woods will just teach me a little bit. Because I know I'm kind of a hacker, but I know I'm pretty good. So I'm probably going to give Tiger Woods a few pointers too. So I'm expecting Tiger Woods. But guess who comes? A junior instructor. And his name is Fred Fiddlesticks. I don't like Fred Fiddlesticks. I thought I was going to get Tiger Woods. But what does Fred Fiddlesticks do? He teaches me the ABCs of golf. He teaches me the elementary steps. He makes me understand the true basics of golf. And he shatters my pride in the process. I don't like Fred too much because I begin to realize all I ever was was a terrible golfer. I didn't understand golf at all. And the more I know Fred Fiddlesticks, the more I know I'm not a good golfer. But finally the great day arrives and I'm ushered into the presence of the world's greatest golfer, Tiger Woods. And what are two things that are going to happen on that day? What are two things I should say that are not going to happen on that day? Number one, I'm not going to blubber that I lost my junior instructor because now I'm in the presence of the greatest golfer in the world. And number two, I won't say that anything the junior instructor taught me is contradictory to what I learned from Tiger. No, he laid the groundwork for Tiger. He helped me understand that I need Tiger Woods. No, the law lays the groundwork for Christ and Christ takes his students from immaturity to immaturity. From the junior instructor to the great end times teacher from God. Let me give you another example. When my kids were little, I had, as a parent, all sorts of little rules for them, like here'd be a good, a typical little rule, like don't ride your tricycle out in the street. Don't ride your tricycle out in the street. Now, all my kids are old now. My baby is 22. I have a 22-year-old, a 24, a 26, and a 28-year-old. Three of them are married. All four of them live on their own. They are not children anymore. So when they come over for Thanksgiving, which they will here in a couple weeks, and when Thanksgiving dinner is over, do I look at my son, Mark, and I say, Mark, after dinner here, I don't want you to go out and ride your tricycle on the street. Of course not. Why not? Because he's mature now. But, I ask you, has my heart changed for my son? Do I still have the desire that he be safe and take care of himself? Is it also true that even though I've had a lot of little laws that don't apply to him, that only applied when he was a child, that I also spoke to him, even when he was a child, about things that still do? Like I always told my children when they were little that when they got married, they should marry somebody who loves the Lord. So some things have slipped away, but other things are just as relevant as they ever were. And so the law's expression is updated in Christ because spiritual maturity is achieved in Christ. Mosaic law was for a preliminary period. Maturity comes in Christ both as an outward standard, but also as an inward power. So Christ becomes our great end times teacher. Now again, by way of contrast, I want to go back. Make sure you understand this. Let's pretend now I am a legalist. Alright? You're the Christians. Now I have to defend myself. I'm the legalist. Before, if I'm the legalist, You have an outward standard and an inward power, but I'm the legalist. I'm impoverished. I do good things, but I don't do them for the other or for my neighbor or for my co-religionist. My very best works are ultimately for me. I'm insecure before God. I don't have an alien righteousness. And so every time I give alms to the poor, I'm really secretly doing it for me, because I need my righteousness. And so at very best, when I'm commanded to love my neighbor as myself, my neighbor is the indirect object. The primary object of all my good works is me, because I'm impoverished. I have nothing but what I bring to the table. Oh, and other people are not ends in themselves. For the legalists, they're means to ends. And so Paul gives now free and mature men in Galatia a command. He says, alright, you want to be bound under the law? Alright, here's a law from the Mosaic Covenant. From Leviticus 19. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then Christ will grant these free men the gradual maturity to put this into place and to actually love their neighbor as themselves from the heart. Now, it's not in the context here, but Christ will also grant you the ability or the Galatians the ability to love God from the heart. Again, if I'm the legalist, I can't love God from the heart. I've got tons of conflicting emotions because I love God, but I hate God simultaneously because I'm insecure before God. No, it's in Christ that we can really love our neighbor as ourself. Love your neighbor as yourself, Luther says, is the longest and the shortest divinity in all the world. And what he means by that is the longest and the shortest word from God in all the world. Shortest by virtue of just words. Love your neighbor as yourself. Five or six words, that's all it is. It's the longest divinity from God, touching how long you can do it. How long could you love your neighbor as yourself? Could you get by for like only three minutes doing that? Or could it last you a year from now? Or how about you? Could it last you for five more years? Or could it last you forever and ever and ever? There is no time that you could ever exhaust the meaning of that, to love your neighbor as yourself. So Luther goes on and says, your neighbor and yourself together are more large, more long, more profound, more high than anything in this present world. And here's another side of this. In a way, the law of love disciplines our sinful nature. Now that the command is a funded mandate, and it's funded in Christ, in the Spirit, in the new nature, and in faith expressing itself through love, then the command does no longer incite sin. It no longer, you know, makes sin swell up in our lives, but rather Thus, this funded mandate suppresses sin. It is a true paedagogos, a nasty disciplinarian of the sinful nature. It deprives it. It disciplines it. It curbs it. And eventually, people, eventually, with time and with maturity, it will conquer it. Gospel freedom will conquer it because it takes the commands of God and it adds to them the ability to do them. Not all at once, not in an instant, not in the twinkling of an eye, but gradually and incrementally as you pursue it, as you keep in step with the Spirit of God. At the very act in which you are loving your neighbor as yourself, you are taking all of your energies and putting them in this direction and you are starving the sinful nature. So freedom isn't a cheap pass for sin. Remember that old little ditty, remission from sin, what a blessed condition, I can sin all I want and still get remission. No, because gospel freedom does have, it is pro-law, if that's what freedom means, I'm free to do whatever I want, I'm free to pursue anything, I'm free to view my neighbor as an object of exploitation. If that's what freedom means, then we are very pro-law as Christians. Freedom asks you, gospel freedom asks you to understand afresh, that sin always hurts you and your neighbor. It'll always make you self-centered and even predatory. It makes you view your neighbor as if it were not an end in and of itself, but something for you to exploit, something for you to humiliate if it makes you look better, or something that you can treat with indifference. And that's why Paul says, as he does in our last verse today, verse 15, if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by one another. He's talking about a lifestyle in legalism where men and women come together and they're all legalists. Now imagine this, they're all legalists, men and women together, They're incredibly insecure before God, and as legalists, every single thing they do, though outwardly it has the veneer of civility, inwardly there's a double motive in doing whatever they do. If a brother or a sister looks more righteous than me, and I'm in fellowship with you as fellow legalists, what am I going to think about that? It's going to reveal my unrighteousness. And so I might lash out against you because I cannot stand before God to be made to look as if somebody is better than me. I might even try to destroy you. And insofar as I bring you down, I lift myself up before God. Legalism makes people competitive with one another. It makes us bite and devour one another. That's what he's talking about. The fruits of legalism is a group of people that are highly competitive with one another, and they're all trying to gain God's favor. And if somebody gets ahead of somebody else, that somebody over there is a threat to that person over there. You understand what he's saying about biting and devouring one another? What is it like to be freed from legalism? It is nothing but peace on earth and goodwill towards men. In this community, if we give up and we understand that we have been given as a gift everything, and that I don't literally have to be insecure before God, then it frees me up. I can actually do a good work with the right motives. I can make that man or that man or that woman the object of a good work without, I'm not saying that there isn't a sense in which all works are colored by our sin, but I can come a lot closer to good works than a legalist can. Because a legalist is always doing every outwardly good thing in order to impress God. And the neighbor is not an end in himself. It is a means to my ends as a legalist. But in Christ, I'm freed from all that. You're freed from all that. And the command, love your neighbor as yourself, is an outward mandate, but it comes with an inward, it's a funded mandate. It comes with the Spirit, and it comes with faith, and it comes with hope, and it comes with love. And gradually we are perfected in those things, and so that when it's all said and done, as Luther says, that single five-word command, love your neighbor as yourself, is the shortest and the longest of all possible divinities. When you leave here this morning, would you leave understanding what Gospel freedom is? And that you are free men and women in Christ. Not that you have already arrived. I don't mean to imply that at all. But in the Gospel, there is a power unto salvation and unto righteousness. And Paul says in Romans 8, The righteous requirements of the law are never fulfilled in the legalist. They are fulfilled in those who walk by faith and through the spirit. Let's stand for a closing prayer. I don't even know exactly how to pray here, except that Our understanding of the Gospel we saw today help us to see today that we would never even be able to live with one another and even have fellowship, true fellowship and peace among the brethren if we really, really believed that we are accepted before You according to how we behave and what we have earned and how good we are and how much we have wowed You. Thank you for giving us everything we need in Christ. Thank you for giving us a fulfillment of our deepest needs in Christ. And so that we can turn with a new power that comes and arises out of faith. And we can now turn to our neighbor and begin to love him as ourselves. This is true sanctification. This is true evangelism. And this is true good works. Help us to this end, we pray, and we ask this in our Savior's name. Amen. And you are dismissed.
Galatians 5:7-15 (Lesson 10)
Série Galatians Series
ID do sermão | 11200519331 |
Duração | 43:30 |
Data | |
Categoria | Culto de Domingo |
Texto da Bíblia | Gálatas 5:7-15 |
Linguagem | inglês |
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