Galatians chapter 5, breaking into the chapter at the verse 2, and we'll read from verse 2 down to and including verse 12. The Word of God says, For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, you're fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. You did run well. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. I have confidence in you through the Lord, that you will be none otherwise minded. But he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offence of the cross ceased. I would they were even cut off, which trouble you? Amen, we'll finish there at verse 12. And again, we know God will bless his word to our hearts. So two weeks ago, we finished off chapter four. We looked into the first verse of chapter five. And as we finished that section of Paul's epistle to the believers in the region of Galatia, we noted how Paul reminded them reminded the believers that everything ought to be underpinned by the word of God. And that was an important and it is an important lesson for us. Everything that Paul had been teaching them with regards to the false teachers who had come in and the things that they were declaring and how they were leading the believers away from the gospel of grace. All that he was saying was there to demonstrate that both they and we today, we live according to the new covenant, we're under grace, and we need to learn more and more to live like it. And that's why we finished in chapter five in verse one where Paul says, Paul was emphasizing the freedom, the freedom that we have through Christ and in light of that then there is a responsibility to live obediently according to the Word of God. Obedience is important in line with the Word of God because the Word of God gives us a pattern for living. It's a pattern of obedience and it's a lifestyle of faithfulness to the instruction that God has laid down in his Word. That is what it is to be free and to be free to serve the Lord. and to stand fast for him. Now we come into these final two chapters and Paul begins now to move away, I suppose, from focusing so much upon teaching this doctrine and dealing with these particular issues and these particular problems. He takes it to its natural end and he brings it now in this next section to the practical application of what he has been saying to the believers in Galatia and how it has an impact upon their lives and how it should have an impact upon our lives, how it should be lived out in the life of the Christian. One commentator writing about this final section of the letter simply states that Paul is now teaching that right doctrine should result in right living. And of course it should. Right doctrine should result in right living. And these two chapters, chapter five and chapter six, they place a very particular emphasis upon how we can live rightly. And we do that by the power of the Holy Spirit and how that is worked out in the life of the Christian. And we're going to see how Paul starts to introduce that as we look at this section that we're looking at this evening. We're going to see how he introduces the importance of the work of the Holy Spirit and how we live obediently for the Lord. But there's three things that we see in the verses that we've read this evening. Paul, first of all, gives them a personal reminder. He's reinforcing his argument, and we see that in verse two where he starts with that word behold. Now, the word behold is very much a Bible word. Whenever you read through your Bible, you'll find the word behold in your Bible. If you were to sit down and take the time to count it, which you'll not, and I didn't either, but you'll find that you'll read the word behold over a thousand times in your Bible. But this particular Greek word that's translated as behold on this occasion is very specific. It's only used around 30 times and it's translated here as behold. And it's used in the sense of it's an expression of surprise. Okay. What Paul is saying is that because they had experienced grace and they have been the beneficiaries of grace through the work of Christ. He's saying that he's surprised that they have believed the false teaching that they needed to follow through on the old covenant that the false teachers were teaching them, that he is surprised that they have fallen for that, given that they have experienced grace in their lives, given that they have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ and they know that the law has no effect in their salvation. And so Paul then has this expression where he reminds them again of the importance of the message that he has taught them. And he reminds them again here in verses 2, 3, and 4 of this practical implication of what it would be if they had to depend upon the law. And it's the same for us, if we have to depend upon the law as the means of salvation, this is what it means for us in verse two, verse three, and verse four. And what is the implication if we have to depend upon the law? Well, look what he says. If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing, for I testify again to any man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Do we get that? If we're relying upon the law then we're subject to all of the law. We are under all of the law we are obligated to obey all of the law all of the time as our standard to maintain our stand with the Lord. But that's not what the gospel teaches and that's not what the gospel does. What he's really saying is if it's the law that saves then man is required to keep all of the law all of the time in order to keep his salvation. And Paul has already spoken about that at length in chapter 3 and chapter 4. He's already shown that dependence of the law, in a sense, in verse 2 here, is a rejection of the sufficiency of Christ. He says, if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. The point is really this, that if that's what you're relying on, then you're not relying on Christ. You're not depending upon the sufficiency of Christ. You're not relying upon what Christ has done. And then as he goes on into this verse 3, he's effectively saying, what you're saying is Christ is not enough. And if you're saying that Christ is not enough, and if you're saying that you have to obey the law, then your dependence upon the law has to be absolute. And when that happens, whenever we get ourselves into that fix where we are living our lives according to rules and according to all of those little things, and remember whenever we come to the New Testament, by the time Christ came and by the time Paul was writing, that the Jews had added so many things to the law that they had 613 precepts that they had to keep, at least 613. And Paul was talking about that. Circumcision was just the symbol of all of that. And Paul's really saying you have to keep all of this. You have to obey all of this all of the time. And if you're trying to do that and sometimes in the Christian life we get ourselves into this fix where we are so busy trying to live according to these rules and according to these regulations and according to other people's rules and regulations that they impose upon us that it actually puts us into bondage again. It steals our spiritual liberty. It puts us back to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage, as Paul was talking about in verse one. Now in these verses that we're thinking about just now, he uses a particular picture in these verses. In verse two, he speaks about profit. He says, Christ shall profit you nothing. In verse three, then he speaks about debt. He says, I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. What does he mean by all of that when he uses that picture? He says, if we're under the law, we don't gain the profit from being in Christ in this life. Now, he's not saying that we're not saved. He isn't saying that we lose our salvation. What he's talking about is how we are in bondage, how we are limiting the blessing that's available to us in life. As believers, we're losing the profit in life. We lose, in a sense, some of the value of how we can live and how we ought to live. Remember how Paul, in a number of different letters, writes about the riches of God's salvation. He talks in Ephesians chapter one and verse seven about the riches of his grace. And we know that we benefit from the riches of his grace, and we have those because we have the forgiveness of sins through the work of Christ. Philippians 4 in verse 19 is a verse that's sometimes quoted where it says, God shall supply all our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And people use that as a catch-all. And it's not a catch-all at all. It's not a catch-all to claim what we want. What it really means when you set it into its historical literal context is that the Christian who's truly depending upon Christ will be satisfied with what the Lord gives them. That's what it means. We have this though. We have the richness of glory in Christ. Paul's message as he wrote to the church in Ephesus, for example, was packaged in a sense that he was writing to the believers about how they had the unsearchable riches of Christ. That tells us what we have in Christ. But what we have in Christ is beyond our scope to understand in life. The fullness of the blessing. Paul hears writing in Galatians 5, and he says in verse 1 about being entangled by the law, and he says when we do that, we're essentially rejecting the full value of Christ's work. We're putting ourselves back into bondage again. We're not living in the fullness of the blessing that we can have through the work of Christ. So if that's the case, And as Paul was writing to the Galatian believers, that certainly was the case, but there's no doubt that it is the case at times today as well. Why do we do that? Why do we live like that as believers? Why is it that we so often seem to make ourselves slaves to our own efforts? Because we do. Sometimes I'm sitting in the study and I'm trying to prepare and sometimes it's going better than others and sometimes things are coming in upon you and you're feeling the weight of everything that's going on. And sometimes you're sitting there and you almost feel like you're beating yourself up over other people's expectations of what the role is. And that's just being honest. And yet the primary role of the pastor, and the primary role as the pastor of this church or any church, is to feed the flock of God. That's the responsibility, that's the primary responsibility. But sometimes other people's expectations of what the role is, or other people's expectations weigh upon the shoulders. And you feel that you should be doing this and that and the other because other people think you should be doing those things. And they're telling you that you should be doing those things. but actually the focus, the primary responsibility is the word. That's the primary function. But in the same sense in the Christian life, we carry weight that robs us of our joy. Things that press upon us, things that rob us of our spiritual profit, which is ours as believers. And so often we do that because we allow the expectations of others to weigh upon us. We take the weight that other people place on us. We allow the expectations of others to burden us. We try and reach the standard that they set for us. And that steals our joy. Paul says here, in verse four, that when we put ourselves under this yoke of bondage that he's referred to in verse one, he says, Christ is become of no effect unto you. And then he says this, whosoever of you are justified by the law, you are fallen from grace. Now that's a verse that could sometimes and has sometimes been used to try and argue that a person can lose their salvation when it says you are fallen from grace because the context here is that Paul is writing to believers and then he's saying you're fallen from grace. He's not saying you've fallen out of grace. That's not what he says. That's not the thrust of the verse at all. What he's actually stating here in his context is that those who seek to add the law and who seek to make the law to be the means of adding to their salvation, they have never accepted in the first place the completeness of the work of Christ. So it's a completely different argument altogether, but we know that Paul's speaking to believers here. He's writing to believers and he's writing about believers because of the number of times that we have learned that he calls them brethren. So what Paul is telling them here is a general doctrinal principle. He's really just saying, listen folks, grace and law cannot be mixed. That's really what it comes down to when it comes to the gospel. Grace and law cannot be mixed. Warren Weersbe puts it very well. And he puts it like this, he says, what this means is to have fallen out of the sphere of God's grace. He says, because they had been bewitched by false teachers, they were being disobedient. They had turned back to the old things and therefore they had become entangled with the yoke of bondage. This led them to their present position in which they had robbed themselves of all the good things that Christ could do for them. Now do we understand how that can happen in our lives? How sometimes we get so distracted by other things that we lose sight of grace? We get distracted because we try to make ourselves better whenever we can't make ourselves better. We can't make ourselves pleasing in the eyes of God because God will only see us as pleasing when he sees us through the work of Christ. That's the only thing that will please him. Our best efforts, they won't please him. Only if he sees us through Christ. But when we try to make ourselves better and we can't, it becomes a discouraging thing. Something that discourages us as believers. And sometimes we look around at others. We look at other Christians and we are impacted by them in two different ways. Sometimes we look at other Christians, and I think we're probably all guilty of this to a greater or lesser degree. We look at other believers and we think they have it all together. They have it all sorted out. Everyone just looks to be so easy for them. And in comparison to them, we feel that we don't measure up and we feel inadequate because of that. And then on the other hand, we look at others and they seem to be struggling compared to us. They're not doing so well. It's easy for us at times to get to become puffed up with pride. Maybe look at them and say, I don't understand why they've got themselves into that place. We quickly can judge. We're looking at others. We should be looking to the Lord. You see, the word of God reminds us that our sufficiency as individuals, as believers, doesn't come from ourselves, doesn't come from our efforts, doesn't come from our works, doesn't come from our standing. It comes simply from Christ. Everything that we are. Everything that we are, everything that we have, it comes from Christ. Blessing comes from Christ. Joy comes from Christ. Peace comes from Christ. Confidence comes from Christ. It all comes from him. And I think the reason why we have problems and difficulties sometimes is because we try to bring our own solutions in how to live the Christian life. We try to do it our way. And our solutions don't produce the profit that fixing our eyes on Christ will produce. Our solutions are more likely to only produce problems than they are to produce the profit that we can have as believers. Paul reminded the Galatian believers of that. And I think the only way that Paul could remind him of this is because of his own experience, that he had been in this place, he had experienced these things. Paul has written this letter to the Galatian believers He's written it under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. And as for our learning today, it's recorded in his word. It's inspired by his spirit, the one who indwells us as believers and the one who Paul brings us to consider in these next two verses, the Holy Spirit. You see, Paul, first of all, gives him a personal reminder of what he's been talking to him about, what he's been he's been writing to them about. But then the second thing he brings them to see is that there's a powerful reality. Look at verse 5 and verse 6 with me. He says this, he says, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. Now that little phrase at the start of verse five, we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. You know I read that verse in the study this week. I've never really thought about the verse before. I've read it I'm sure many's a time. I've never actually looked at it and studied it and dug into it. But for me, as I thought about it this week, I think this verse is possibly one of the greatest reminders of the greatest blessing that we have. That we have the gift, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit as believers. So often we miss this truth in a very practical way, in a practical sense. You see this refers to the fact that we have the Spirit of God as our guide for life in our expectation. of our eternal hope. In the expectation of the eternal promise, we, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. We become so enamored with here and now. We become so caught up with the things that go on in this world and the things that impact our day and the things that press in upon us and the things that we're doing tomorrow and next week and next month and we get so caught up with time that we forget that this world is not our home. We forget that we are only temporarily here. And Paul reinforces here his whole argument about grace by reminding the Galatian believers of this wonderful present benefit of the work of Christ and the future blessing of the work of Christ because he talks about how through the Spirit, so that's present. But he talks about how we're waiting for the hope of righteousness by faith. That's future. There's present blessing and there's future blessing and it's here through the spirit. And both of those things are infinitely better than anything that this world offers us. Infinitely better. Do you remember the promise of the Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to his disciples? And we read it in John 14. And he promised that he would send the comforter. He said that after he went, the comforter would come. And then the Lord Jesus Christ, shortly after that, after his death at Calvary, after the resurrection, he had shown himself to his disciples. Ultimately, he ascended from this earth to glory. And shortly afterwards, as the disciples were gathered together in that upper room in the city of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, the believers are gathered together, and the Spirit descended, fulfilling the promise of Christ for the church, for the New Testament church. And on that day, as the church was born, the church was empowered by the promised Spirit. And it still stands. That promise still stands. That promise stands today for every believer. We have the Holy Spirit. The problem that comes so often is that we get distracted by other things. And the problem that comes for us then is that the leading of the Spirit, as the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and speaks into the life of the child of God, is that the Word is not enough. The word doesn't satisfy. And we want our fleshly desires to be fulfilled. And we want the things of here and now to be dealt with. And we want our feelings to be pandered after and our opinions needed to be elevated. But that's not what it is, to live according to the Spirit. Where does power come from for the Christian? It comes through the Holy Spirit. Doesn't come through our efforts. Doesn't come through anything else. Where does peace come from for the Christian? It comes through the Holy Spirit. Later on in this chapter, and we'll get to it as we come towards the end of the chapter, Paul develops this thought about the Holy Spirit. And he highlights in this chapter that conflict that there is between the flesh and the Spirit. He outlines the works of the flesh, and he outlines the fruit of the Spirit. So I don't really want to go too far with this tonight because I want to deal with it when I come to it. But what I will say is this, that this verse 5 reminds us of something very important about what we're to do through the power of the Spirit. Through the Spirit, We are to wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Now what does that mean for us? That word wait is the Greek word apodectomai. It literally means to assiduously or patiently wait for or look for. And to do something in that way, to do something assiduously is to do it with all due care. To do it with perseverance, to make it an ongoing thing. What does that tell us? What does this verse tell us? It tells us that the only way we can live with an eternal perspective, with that depth of care and attention, looking for our blessed hope, the hope of righteousness, is if we are doing it through the Spirit. It's a spiritual exercise. Whenever you put your trust in Christ, whenever I trusted in Christ, One of the benefits that might have been a motivation for us is that we don't go to hell, that we go to heaven, that we have a home and a promise of heaven. And that desire for heaven and the consistent expectation of it, the consistent hope for it, is it a spiritual desire or is it a fleshly desire? Why do we want to go to heaven? Because if we're truly being spirit led, if we truly want to go to heaven being led by the spirit, we want to do it because we are weary of this world. We're weary of the sin in this world. We're weary of the temptations of the flesh. We're weary of all the things that don't and won't occupy heaven. We're weary of the impact and influence that sin has upon us. If we are truly being spirit-led, that's how we will feel. This world will have nothing for us, nothing. We'll find satisfaction in nothing. We will truly know what it is if we're being spirit-led to know what it is to be looking for our hope. Paul, do you remember he talked to Timothy And he reminded Timothy that we should be looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Listen, where's that hope found? It's found in Christ. It's not found in our efforts. And we're to be looking, waiting through the spirit for the hope of righteousness by faith. We're living by faith, looking by faith through the spirit. I'm not so sure. If I'm entirely honest here, I'm not so sure that at times we demonstrate by our lives that we're living in such a way that we're led by the Spirit. And I can speak personally there. Talking personally, first of all. But I think if we did, if we were living in such a way, if we were being led by the Spirit, I don't think we would find it so easy to see problems. And I don't think we would find it so easy to be critical or judgmental because we would be more focused upon things that matter. We would be more focused upon this consistent pattern of anticipation looking for the coming of the Lord. You know we sometimes talk about justification and Paul talks in Galatians about justification and then we talk about sanctification that follows justification and how we ought to be being continually conformed to the image of God's dear son. We ought to be continually being sanctified and then what follows after that is glorification and that's whenever we step from this scene of time and we enter into glory. But as I have looked at this this week, I think, and I'm more of the opinion, that after we've been saved, as part of that process, while we are being sanctified, one of the things that will demonstrate that is that we know this world is not our home. One of the things that will demonstrate that is that we are those who are living through the Spirit with this anticipation of the return of the Lord. and of being with the Lord. Sanctification's a process, we know that. The faithful believer's desiring to be more like Christ and to be more conformed into that pattern. And listen, an integral part of that, as far as I can understand, of being more conformed to be like Christ, is our desire to be with Christ. To be with Him. Understanding this truth that we sometimes don't like to think about and we don't like to talk about, but the reality is this world is a temporary stopping point on the Christian's way to glory. That's all it is. A temporary stopping point. We're here for a season. And it goes by so quickly, and what are we focusing upon? Are we focusing upon here? Are we focusing upon ourselves? Are we focusing upon the things that please us here? Or are we, through the Spirit, waiting for the hope of righteousness by faith? As Spirit-led Christians, that will be a focus of ours. Paul continues in verse 6 here, and he links this together. And what he really says is in verse six, What he's really saying here is if we're being spirit led, if we're persevering with anticipation of the hope that we have by faith, we will very quickly understand that our own effort counts for nothing. Whether circumcision or uncircumcision, whether we're living according to the law, or whether we're not living according to the law, but we're just living in a lawless pattern, not obedient to the Lord. The point is this, and one commentator writes it so well, he says, the outward we understand is totally unimportant and worthless, except as it genuinely reflects inner righteousness. And in essence, that's what verse six declares, the final phrase, faith which worketh by love. as we're being led by the Spirit, as we're being directed by the Spirit through the Word of God. Our service, our work is an output of the faith we have in Christ because of the love we have for Christ. It's not a means of faith, it's an output of faith. Over in Colossians 1, Paul was writing to the believers in Colossae and they were having their own issues with false teachers, different teaching. It wasn't to do with the law, it was to do with Gnosticism and that there was more than Christ and all the rest of it. But as Paul was writing there to deal with issues in the church, the church and Colossae were facing, he said this in chapter 1, verses 10 and 11. He says that, But look what he goes on and says. He says strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. It's doing it through his power, strengthened by his might onto all patients and long suffering with joyfulness. Sometimes we read verse 10 and we forget about verse 11 and we can be full of activity and full of this, that and the other but have we been strengthened by his might according to his glorious power to serve him. We have a responsibility as believers, yes, to walk worthy, but it's not empowered by us. It's not empowered by our own efforts. It's according to his might and his glorious power. Galatians 5 and 6, but faith which worketh by love. Why are we motivated to serve the Lord? How are we motivated to serve the Lord? Are we motivated by love to serve the Lord? Are we motivated by our own motives? to satisfy ourselves. The word of God teaches us over and over and over and over again, it should be out of love for the one who loved us, for the one who has redeemed us, the one who has saved us, the one who has given us his spirit and his spirit is there for us to lead us and to direct us, not just to lead us and to direct our steps, and while that's important, but to direct us in our actions, to direct us in our service, to direct us in his word, and even to direct us as we are seeking to be spirit led in our very desires, that our desire would be fixed upon the hope of righteousness by faith. Our desire should be Christ. Is your desire Christ tonight? As a believer? Is that primary for us? Is that the first thing that's at the top of the list? It's a personal reminder. There's a powerful reality. But then, just so that he can round this off well, Paul brings them back again to talk about the problem that they've been facing, the problem that's refuted. He goes back and he talks about these false teachers. And he highlights for them, as he has done here, and it's not just for them, it's for us as I keep saying, it's possible, and it is possible, to trust in Christ for a period of time to walk according to his spirit, to live after the spirit, to be led by the spirit, and then through distraction, through circumstances, through sin, even in this case by those who come in and lead them astray, it's possible that we can lose the profit of that and fall away into a life where we try and take back control. And that's what it is when we backslide, that we try and take back control of our lives. That's what it is to backslide. And in this section here from verse seven to 12, Paul's emphasis is upon the false teachers, those who have caused distraction, the false teachers who have misled the believers into this graceless pathway. where they're setting aside grace and they're setting aside the promises that have been given through Christ and they're going back after the old things. And in verse 7 he reminds them that they had run well. He says she did run well. And then he says, but somebody has hindered you. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? That word translated as hinder or hindered in that verse is very descriptive in the original language because The Greek word, it's only used on this one occasion. You'll not find the same Greek word anywhere else in scripture. And the picture of that word, it has this picture of a ship out on the sea and it set its course in a certain direction and it's headed for home, it's headed for harbor. And then a wind comes and beats them off course, blows them away from the right course. That's exactly what this idea here is of who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth. Someone or something has come and has caused them to veer off course. They're not following the course that has been set before them by faith through the Holy Spirit. What are they doing? They're going after their own thing. They're going after the thing that they think will satisfy them. Paul builds upon this picture by saying that what was causing them to go off course Well, it's not of the Lord. He says, who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? The truth's of the Lord. Jesus said he was the truth. He said his word is truth. Folks, the point for us is this. Anything that directs us away from the gospel of grace, And anything that directs us away from the path that the Lord has laid before us is not from God. It's God who calls us by his spirit and we understand that. And anything that's contrary to that is not of God. Something that, as I have studied this this week, something that's really been impressed upon my heart as an individual is the need for a greater grasp, a greater attentiveness to the work of the Holy Spirit in my own life. Because being Spirit-led as we come to the Word of God is so vital for the Christian. It's the Spirit who guides us into all truth. And whenever I did the short series on Sunday mornings about the things God never said, and one of the verses I quoted at the very start of that when I was setting the context for that whole series was this verse that says that there are many voices in the world. There are many voices in the world, and we're too quick to listen. We're too quick to hear them and be steered off course by them, whether it's by allurement where they attract us or whether it's by being pushed. The world has many voices to distract and to attract the believer. We need to stop listening to the other voices. We need to be seeking the Lord to speak to us day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment by his spirit because we have his spirit. And so often we forget it. In verse nine here, there's this picture, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and this verse is often quoted about sinning the camp or sinning the work, and it can be applied very much in that context, but the actual literal context is about false teachers contaminating the church. And the picture that's painted here is it only takes a little, a little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump. It just takes a little. And we can think about it practically, if somebody with a food intolerance, someone, for example, who's celiac, and they inadvertently eat something with gluten, and that can cause them a lot of discomfort, it can cause illness, it can cause different side effects. It's not that they have to eat a whole slice of bread or a whole loaf of bread. It can very simply be that someone has used a knife and put that knife into butter and buttered an ordinary slice of bread as we would call it an ordinary slice of bread. If there's anybody Celiac, I'm not saying you're not ordinary. Hope you understand that. But what we would call an ordinary slice of bread and it's been buttered with a knife. Then that knife was put back into the butter immediately without being washed. And the butter spread on the slice of bread, which is gluten free. There's enough contamination in that in some cases. to cause a problem, could cause a reaction. That's the picture here. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Something which is almost unseen can cause damage. And that's why the study of the word of God is important. That's why understanding what scripture says is important because the study of the word of God leads us into correct doctrine. And that's also why it's important that we test teaching against the Word of God, that we're not just taking a man's view of the Word and saying, that's okay, that's it. We test Scripture against Scripture as we're led by the Spirit. And we should never study Scripture through the lens of our own opinion that's been formed in our own minds or formed through listening to others. Study scripture in its literal, historical, grammatical context. Understand what is being said and why it's being said. And endeavour to do that through the leading of the Holy Spirit. And God will speak through his word. And he does speak through his word. As Paul here warns them of this danger, he encourages them in verse 10 to remain steadfast. He says, I have confidence in you through the Lord. He has confidence in them, but where's his confidence really grounded? It's not grounded in them. He's confidence in them through the Lord. The Lord in whom they have believed. Paul knew that if they truly take on board what he's saying to them, he knew that if they truly sought the Lord and endeavored to be led by the Spirit, that they wouldn't easily be swayed from the path of grace. Folks, we can't stay strong in our own strength. We know that, don't we? We can't do it ourselves. We can't live this life ourselves. Our strength, our confidence comes from the Lord. That's what keeps me. And that's what keeps you. And as Paul concludes this section, he reminds them of the judgment that waits for their reprobate. The false teacher who seeks to lead them astray. Verse 11 and verse 12. He reminds him in verse 11 that Paul, if he was preaching what they were preaching, why is he still being persecuted for the sake of the gospel? Why do I yet suffer persecution? Paul repudiated the law and the works of the law as having any value in salvation. And because of that, Paul was hated and Paul was persecuted. That's why they were coming along behind him. Remember, Paul had been in the region of Galatia and had seen people trust in Christ. They'd come to the gospel of grace and then these people are coming along behind him and they're criticizing Paul and ridiculing Paul and turn his message and his ministry to strips because it didn't suit them. And they were trying to gather up a following. The gospel that Paul taught. is still hated. It's hated today, it's hated as much now as it was then, perhaps more. And the gospel's still hated because man hates to be told that he's a sinner and he can't do it himself. That's why the gospel's hated. And that reality, we have to understand that that reality will not cease. And it won't cease until the day when Christ establishes his eternal kingdom. and then sin will be no more. We look around us today and we can see moral decline can't we? We can see what's going on in this world. This week there's been a debate make the news in Northern Ireland for the first couple of days of the week about scenes of absolute debauchery in a bar in Belfast and I don't know I'm not even going to go into the detail of it, I wouldn't go into the detail of it, but I have listened to people on the radio this week come on and openly state that those things that happened in that bar were not a scandal, there was nothing wrong with them, it was just people having a bit of fun and actually going as far as to suggest that anybody who says they are a scandal or that they're wrong, well you're the ones in the wrong, you're living in the dark ages. What's that? That's man saying that he can live as he pleases. That's a man saying that he can do what he wants. That's a man saying I can set my own law and no one can judge me. Do you know what? It's not us judging them that they need to be worried about. It's not us judging them. Society today will say that their way is fine, that they can work it out their way. The Bible tells us we're sinners. The Bible tells us our sin separates us from God. The Bible tells us that God has made a way of salvation and we continue to preach that truth and we continue to stand against man's rebellion because the message hasn't changed because sin hasn't changed and the message won't change because sin won't change. Sin still separates man from God. Paul was ridiculed, Paul was persecuted and as believers we have to understand if we're going to live As we ought to be living as Christians in this world that we're living in today we're going to face these same challenges, we're going to face the same battles especially if we're endeavouring to live as spirit led Christians. Paul then finishes in verse 12 by reminding them of the cutting off of the troublers, he says, I would they were even cut off which trouble you. That seems like harsh language. But the psalmist speaks about this in Psalm 94, talks about how the wicked will be cut off. Why are they being cut off? Because of sin, because of iniquity. What a fearful thing that is, to be in that place of cutting off. These false teachers have set themselves against Paul. They've done it for the sake of a following, but in doing that, they have set themselves against God, they have set themselves against the gospel, and they've rejected the gospel, and they have damned themselves. So it is for all who set themselves against the gospel. And that's why there's an important role that we play in reaching out with the gospel, to point people to Christ. As we think about the different opportunities that there be, even with the gospel mission coming up and with other things that will be taking place where we have an opportunity to reach out with the gospel, we need to be much in prayer for the lost. We need to be much in prayer for souls. Because we don't want to see our loved ones cut off. We want to see them living for the Lord. We want to see them in God's heaven. What are we to do as believers? We're to live faithful to the word of God. We're to be led by the spirit. We're to keep our eyes on Christ. And we're to live for his glory. And as we do that, We will see the profit in it. We will know the blessing of it as we are those who wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Amen. Let's close our time in prayer. I'll leave the prayer points with you. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you again tonight for the Word of God. And we thank you, Lord, for the opportunity that there is to learn it and to learn from it and to study it. And Father, we thank you for the Holy Spirit. And Lord, we confess at times that we don't live after the leading of the Spirit as we ought to. And Father, we confess at times that we go through the motions. And Lord, even as we come to prayer, we pray tonight, Lord, that that wouldn't be the case. We pray, oh God, that your spirit would move in this place tonight, that we would be a people who desire to be led by the spirit of God, desire to be guided by your spirit, a people who desire to live after the spirit, looking for that hope, that hope of righteousness by faith. So Father, we do pray that you will help us tonight. Bless your word to our hearts. Bless us as we wait on around the throne of grace and have your name to be glorified in this place tonight. We pray in the Savior's name. Amen.