Galatians 5. Let's just read down through verse 15. For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 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 await for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. 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. For you who are called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another." Okay. As we move into this, of course, we see the word for there in verse 1 of chapter 5. It is a continuation of what Paul is teaching. Now, of course, we know this, but it's important to remember and keep on our mind that These verse numbers and headings are not part of Paul's letters. They are not there. They are a contemporary, in a sense, a contemporary addition so that we might find things easier. But because we live in a systematized way of thinking, it's easy for us to think, oh, this is a new thought. It's not a new thought. It's a continuation of the teaching that's already been done. We are not slaves. We are free. We are free in the Lord Jesus. We are sons and daughters of promise. We are not, we have been begotten by the Spirit of God, so we are not dead and enslaved by the law, which is what Hagar and Ishmael is a picture of, the law. We are free by grace. 4. Freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore. This is an exhortation. This is a commandment. And do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. So the whole form of this writing is to look with circumcision in view. But it's not just the act of circumcision as we'll see in just a moment. It's the idea of obedience to the law. No matter what it was, whether it be a prayer, whether it be this, whether it be that, you know, I didn't realize it because I really don't follow these things, but I guess Lent is upon us and It baffles me that evangelical Protestants practice Lent. And I've looked through the ages of all of the historical traditions of that. But if you look in Scripture, when we see that there was a time where Jews themselves would mark their foreheads with ash and tear their clothes and fast and things of that nature, Jesus rebukes them and says, wash your face and tidy up your clothes so that no one knows you're fasting. Do not let it be seen by your brothers, for if you do, it is your only reward. So we don't do these spiritual things thinking that they honor God or do something great for God. That's why we have to be so careful that we don't take a spiritualized or mystical approach to the sacraments or to the ordinances as we would call them as Baptists. We don't take a firm hand on certain types of songs that are sung in a certain way or a certain language. Now, of course, we do scrutinize and discriminate based on what the context is and the content of what we learn and sing. I'm not saying that, but we don't think that there's a sound or an organ that's more spiritual than a piano or certain types of things. And yet, in the same way, we are also very careful to understand that some people have a conscience that where I might go rock-heavy at home and worship, it's not for the assembly. And so we are careful in that. But oftentimes we're careful on one side, but we're not careful on the other, are we? We want to get too uber-formal. We want to get extremely ritualistic and think, this is the honorable way to worship the Lord. Well, circumcision is just one of the ways in which Jews looked at obedience. There were many laws, many precepts, many active applications of the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue, how this Sabbath law was obeyed, how honoring parents were to be fulfilled, how worshiping God was supposed to be understood, and the list goes on and on. But Paul said, for the sake of freedom, Christ has set us free. In other words, he set us free unto freedom. It is freedom. We are free. But then we see down here, we don't use our freedom for the flesh as an opportunity. This first 13, we don't use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. And there's twofold as we close out tonight. That'll be the last thing we talk about is what it means to give opportunity to the flesh. But we are free. So then we stand firm in the freedom of Christ. That means we stand firm in our confession of hope in the Lord Jesus. We stand firm in the knowledge of grace. We stand firm in the position of being justified before the Father through the finished work of Christ. We stand firm by faith alone. We do not go and find anything else to rake into our pile. I just sort of get the picture sometimes of raking leaves. I rake leaves a lot as a child and sometimes I have to rake leaves a lot as an adult. You can rake leaves, and you can rake leaves, and you can rake leaves, but there's always one of several things that can get in the way of that. Wind can make leaf raking a mess, and so what you have to do then is you just sort of come in and rake leaves back. You have to rake it back up in this pile. And then dogs can run through leaves and children can run through leaves and mess up what you're doing. But I sort of envision like a leaf pile or a dirt pile is how we are freed from the job or we gathered up all of the dust or the dirt to put into the dustpan, but we never want to pick it up. We just want to let ourselves sit in the midst of the pile. And when some of that stuff gets swept away from us, it would be like going back to the laws, like having the tendency to, no, no, no, no, I want this trash pile. I want to keep my leaves, I want to keep my leaf pile piled up to my knees. I want to stand in this. Well, I have a friend who was dealing with leaves and let them sit for too long and then his hand was bitten by a serpent. Right there on James Street. Because snakes like leaves. But we do that. And that's what circumcision is. That's what the law does. When we just, we're free, but we want to continue to make something shackle us. To make this ritual as though it were honoring to the Lord, but really it's something that trips us up. Doesn't Paul use that language in Hebrews? To take off that which entangles us and trips us. To run freely as we look to the one who has gone before us, the founder and the perfecter of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. So we are not to submit again to the yoke of slavery. We're not to consider the precepts of the law and obedience to the law as a justifying or edifying power. Because then Paul begins to explain why. He's already done it, but he's given a couple of things to think about, two things specifically. He says, look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. All right, let me tell you what that's not saying. That doesn't mean if somebody who reads this had already been scared and took circumcision that they were condemned. It means that if you accept circumcision as a viable and true and logical assurance, as a safety net, that you don't have faith in Jesus alone, so he's worthless to you. If there's anything you add to salvation, anything you add to the hope of your salvation, anything you add to the promise of your salvation, that is what you believe in. That is what you believe in. And so that's what Paul is saying there. Don't accept circumcision as a viable safety net. Don't accept circumcision or anything in that nature, anything of the law, any act of obedience that would cause you to feel more confident in your flesh because you're not to use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. So don't use your freedom as an opportunity to be sure. Somebody recently asked this question to me, what if we're wrong about the gospel? And it's an easy answer. It's impossible. To be wrong about the gospel. When the word of God is your God. By the Holy Spirit. Now, the argument of that is that everyone in their tradition. Claims divine illumination. But beloved, even when you cannot see, you cannot debate the syntax and what is taught. And the crazy thing is, what is clearly, clearly obvious in the language of letters like this, letters like Romans, the teachings of Jesus throughout the Gospels, the ministry of the Apostles through the Acts, What is clear and obvious is hidden from the goats, hidden from those who have yet to believe. They're hidden. And so what is even true and that they would even concede and say, OK, I see that, but it's always the but the but is the circumcision. It's always something else or it's not the but it's the what about. Well, I see that, but what about this? What about that? What about the other? Or the absurd, ridiculous hypotheticals? So what you're saying is that so-and-so could do this and do that and do that and be a Christian. Where do we have to go in Scripture in order to get people to see the truth of the gospel clearly. Are we teaching it wrong? Are we reading it out of context? Are we just so narrow-minded that we can't think? And so we're just not speaking rightly? No, there's nothing that we can do differently. We must read the Bible, expose the Bible, deal with what the Bible teaches concerning the gospel. And God and God alone will open the eyes for the man or the woman to see it. And so when we see people continually to hold on to all of these law-abiding peripherals, we must not lose heart. We must not lose heart. And we must remember that Christ will bring His sheep to the truth. Paul even says that here, doesn't he? I trust in the Lord that you'll see it because you are His. So if we look to anything to add, Christ is of no advantage because Christ testifies concerning Himself that He is our propitiation, that He is our righteousness, that He is our sanctification, that He is the new and better way, that He is our Redeemer. So if there's anything else that can redeem, then Christ is worthless. That's what he's saying there. Then he says again, I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision. Not only is Christ worthless because he can't save you, Christ cannot save you if you look to the law. Because Christ fulfilled it. But I testify to every man who accepts circumcision that he's obligated to keep the whole law. So not only is it that it can't save you, but you are now bound to it as a slave and are no longer free. So that if you are considering that circumcision or any other demonstration or visual aid that would gain some type of assurance for you, then you must keep all of them, all of them. 600 plus laws. You must keep them completely. You must keep them perfectly. Having never disobeyed any of them, having never broken any of them, because we see how Jesus teaches that if we obey in all, but fail in one, we've disobeyed them all. The law is a display of Christ, the perfect and righteous one. It is not the manner in which we can live It is condemnation. It is always death. So if we accept circumcision, he says, we must accept the whole law, every part. And if we do, you are severed from Christ. You can't have both. If the law is the shadow of Christ, If the showbread is the shadow of Christ, if the Holy of Holies is the shadow of Christ, if the temple is the shadow of Christ, if the pillars are shadow of Christ, if all of these things are the shadow of Christ, if the phylacteries that they wore were shadows of Christ, the Word that became flesh, then how is it that we can have both? The shadow and the truth. How can we have the type and the antitype at the same time? How can we be alive and dead? How can we be black and white? How can we be beast or human? It's not possible. We must see that the gospel is not found in the law. The good news is not there. The good news has never been there. The good news is that Christ is our righteousness. So verse 4, if you're severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen from grace. If you look to the law, there is no grace because there is no grace when it comes to the law. You shall be bound to be judged by the law and your keeping of it, or you shall be bound to be judged by the mercy of God through Jesus Christ who died in your place. Which is it? Now if we were to remember all of the dialogues that Jesus had specifically in the Gospel of John, we would see that there are many times where Jesus would show conditions. But in the same context, he would show these conditions like, you cannot believe because you are not my sheep. And then he would express himself in such a way, he would say, the reason that you don't live is because you don't believe. Why don't you look at the signs that I do? That is a rebuke. It's not a promise of life through seeing the signs. It's not a promise of life to the Pharisees because they tithe when he says, just keep the whole law. It's not a promise or a choice of the rich young ruler when he says, you must be perfect. And then the man says, well, I've kept them all. It's not an opportunity for him to get righteous. It's an opportunity for him to see that he's not. And it still has no effect on people, does it? Until they're born again. There is no grace where there is law abiding. Because if we are going to measure ourselves by it, we are going to be judged according to it. Beloved, it is good news that by grace we have been saved. For, verse 5, through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. That's a beautiful phrase. By faith, not by works, not by law, not by striving, not by zeal, not by inward affections, not by expressions, not by ministry, not by application, not by anything at all do we wait with hope of righteousness except by faith in the One who is our righteousness. This is it. We eagerly await through the Spirit by faith for the hope of righteousness. The further explanation there is that in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. It explains that. Faith working through love. So here Paul says that faith works. What does it do? It hopes in what? The revealed righteousness of God through Christ alone. That's what it does. Working faith sees the love of God for us in Jesus through the declaration by the Spirit of God we see, we hold fast, we have hope of righteousness in Christ. Because whether you're circumcised or not, as verse six has told us, it means nothing. It counts for nothing. And we know Paul was not one to say it was an abomination to be circumcised. He circumcised Timothy. Why? To save him the headache. Yeah, you have the freedom to eat without washing your hands, but when you go into a home, And they wash their hands, just wash your hands. When you go into a home and they're sitting at the table and you got nasty, dirty feet, or not, they don't sit at the table, but they sit, you know, with their feet near the table, just wash your feet. Does it have anything to do with God's holiness? No, it has everything to do with politeness. If there are people in the South who just absolutely get upside down and crazy because you pulled out wine at the dinner table, relax, offer them some, and remember not to indulge in front of them again until you've had a chance to share with them the truth. For the sake of what we eat or drink, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. That's what Paul says in Romans 14. But it doesn't make us any better. He says, you were running well, you were running well, you were living well, you were going well, you were carrying in your heart the faith that is in Christ, you believed. And he asked rhetorically, who hindered you from obeying the truth? I love this phrase because it gives clear indication of many times when we hear about the obedience of faith. that it's in direct contrast to the rebuke that Paul's giving here when the flesh goes, oh, I've got to obey something. I've got to do something with my flesh that warrants something or secures something before the Lord, or exposes something. Obeying the truth is believing in Christ alone. Obeying the truth is faith alone, period, in Christ alone, period. There is nothing else to do in regards to our justification, in regards to our sanctification, in regards to our hope. And then he says clearly where this does not come from. Look at the negative there in verse eight. This persuasion This persuasion that has gotten you to not obey the truth, and that means you're not believing in Christ alone right now by considering circumcision as a viable safety net, this persuasion is not from Him who calls you. It's not from Him who calls you. Then who is it from? It's from the Father of lies, who always masquerades as an angel of light. We need to recognize, beloved, if you read Thessalonians and you see how the Lord has really pressed upon the idea and in 2 Corinthians that God himself not just permits and purposes but empowers and sends deception to people. And the scripture is clear that when we think, this is part of the deception of the enemy, we see all this heinous stuff, we see all this dark, demonic stuff, we get all up in arms about a Halloween, or a sci-fi, or a cult, or the mark of a beast, when the mark of the beast is denying Christ. Satan is in the business of looking so much like God, so much like truth, so much like Christ, that as Paul says it, it would deceive even the elect if it were possible. That is the operation of the enemy, which is in accordance to the judgment of God. That's hard for us to put our minds around in our culture. So this persuasion is not from the Lord Jesus. It is not from God the Spirit. It is not from God the Father. It is from the father of lies. It is from the devil, the adversary, the enemy. His name is Lucifer. And then he says a little leaven leavens the whole lump. You got a little bacteria that can make everything bad. You got a little virus that can spread quickly. You got a little yeast that can just make everything ruined. And all it takes is one. All it takes is one who comes in the midst of a people and begins to try to mold and manipulate people and form them into what they want them to be because in their mind it looks more godly and then it's not good enough when it happens. And though then it's got to be more, all the while thinking in a deprecating way of what we call a humble brag. I'm not there yet, but you're not as close as I am. And it's disturbing. Who puts that in the hearts of people? The devil. The enemy. It only takes But I have confidence, Paul says, in the Lord that you'll take no other view. I have confidence. How does he say that? Just like he told the Thessalonians, he who began a good work in you will see it to the day of the Lord. He'll continue to work in you. He'll hold you. Just like we see to the letter of the Ephesians, it says the Spirit of God seals us for the day of redemption. We've already heard that we are heirs and offsprings and sons and daughters of promise. We're going to be secure. Those who are given to the Son, He will never cast away. They cannot be snatched out of His hand. He has saved us. He has purchased us with His blood. There is no return program. There is no refund. There is no exchange. There is no trading system. This is not an open draft. He doesn't bargain with the enemy. And none of His sheep will be lost. None of them. None of us will love Him. But yet all of us can probably find a time in our life, it may have even been today, where we probably banged our head against our proverbial soul and thought, man, why can't I get this stuff in my mind out of my mind? Why can't I get these feelings out of my life? Why can't I get these disciplines a little bit more focused for the sake of Christ? And all the while we're working to that end, you know what we're not doing? Praising Him for His glorious grace. You know what else we're not doing? Serving our brothers and sisters. You know what else we're not doing? Looking at the face of Christ and growing in the knowledge of grace. We are focused on ourselves, not our Savior. And it is a trick of the enemy. It is a deceptive thing. And it is so easy to preach it. It is so easy. to fill every seat in this room, to have to get all the chairs from downstairs and put out another hundred chairs. It is so easy to guilt people into an oppressiveness, thinking that they are serving the Lord and doing their duty, thus they are okay. When the image that we see is just like cows who are in that little chute, or sheep And it's taken them exactly where they think they're supposed to be going because the people who fed them their entire lives and groomed them and watered them, surely they're going to feed them now, but they're putting them in that little chute and they're staying in the boundaries of that little gate and they're going straight into that little stall and then they cut their throats. Led to a slaughter. That's what the flesh will do for us. By the Lord, I have confidence you will take no other view. You will believe the gospel that you have received and you will put away. Why did the Lord send the letter to the Galatians? Because we ourselves need this letter. We need to be reminded that that war for the sake of our flesh, our flesh is free in Christ alone by grace. And beloved, as long as we're fighting the battle in our flesh for the sake of our flesh, we're not trusting in grace. And it just seems counterintuitive. But Paul is so clear on what he wishes would happen to these people. Some people find offense at this, and it's rather offensive. It's not a rated G statement. I know, and I'm confident of the Lord, you'll take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. What's the penalty? Condemnation. Making provision for the flesh. Serving the flesh. Faithfulness of the flesh. Confidence in the flesh. Condemnation. Condemnation. Whoever he is, he's going to pay. But if I, look at this argument now. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, in other words, you know the gospel I preach, the gospel that I've already affirmed, the gospel that I've given my reputation, that was given to me by God, I didn't go learn it from a store or from a school or from a book. I didn't repeat, become a ditto head of other people's doctrine. I denied everything that I'd ever been taught about God and the Bible and the truth and theology. This is what Paul is saying. I let it all go. I counted it as nothing. And then Christ himself met me, and then I was set free in the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of God. I was born again, and I saw and I knew, and the Spirit of God taught me these things. And I affirmed not only this gospel was the same gospel as the other apostles, but they affirmed also that it was the same gospel as theirs, the one that I preached. So why am I being persecuted if I still preach circumcision? Now that could probably make us think, well, I bet some people were saying, no, no, no, Paul taught us this. Isn't that the way to get people to listen to what we have to say that's off the cuff, that's a little bit outside the lines, that's not so strong in the center, on the foundation of the gospel of grace? It's easy for us to get someone else to hear. If we have a little bit of credibility, another name to drop, another famous pastor, Another pastor that might be credible or a historical figure. Oh, you know, so-and-so believed this. I don't care what so-and-so believed, Paul says. That's why historical theology and the doctrinal journey of men and women throughout the ages is interesting as a hobby, as a discipline, as a literary discipline, or as a, you know, A liberal arts discipline. It's not to teach you the things of Christ. The word of God alone is to teach us the things of Christ. But if he had still preached circumcision, then why was he being persecuted? Because you know what? When you take away sovereign grace and you add the flesh to the redemption of God's people, the lost of the world who claim Christ let you be. They let you be. It's all unity. Let's take out our lighters, or our candles, you know. Now it's cell phones. Let's take out our cell phones, turn on the lights, and let's just all sway back in two and just, kumbaya, here it is, we're all one, give a coconut smile. Remember that? We're all together, but the minute someone says that the flesh is of no value, That your ministry is of no value, that your religion is of no value for your life. Like you're a vampire or something, they put a crucifix in your face and garlic around their necks or silver bullets in their gun, like you're some type of beast. So if Paul were preaching the law, if Paul were adding the law as a confidence booster, he would not be persecuted because he'd go hand-in-hand with the Judaizers. As a matter of fact, I believe that even the Pharisees would probably have linked arms with him politically. You know what? We could use another set of families here. In that case, If I was preaching circumcision, if I was adding to the gospel, if I was just taking grace and like Plato, mashing it together to blend the color, then the offense of the cross has been removed. See, when you take away the offense of the cross, those who hate the grace of God stop complaining. It always is subtle. But once you see it, it's not as subtle, is it? Like many of these so-called Christians and their so-called ministries and the so-called pastorates that have a so-called gospel, and they have young men who testify and give testimony, who said they came to the knowledge of the gospel of grace five years ago, but in the last five years I've been struggling with sin and blah, blah, blah, but I was lost. But then I stopped doing this and I stopped doing that and I stopped doing this. Now I know I'm a saved man. Do you know what they confessed? They're a lost man. Oh, well, I didn't say I was perfect now. He's still working on me. Y'all know that song. What is it that we must be doing to be doing the work of God? Believe on the Son whom He has sent. This world is inundated with Judaizers. And we are not to revile, we are not to mock, and that's difficult. Sometimes we mock and satire covers a multitude of wounds. Have you noticed that? When we can laugh at something in a witty way, it helps the pain. Sort of like the men dying with Jesus mocking. Give them unity with their own persecutors. We shouldn't mock them. poke fun at them, we should weep and mourn for them. For if it was not for the grace and the mercy of God to grant us the faith to see, which is repentance, we would be just like them, working through a cultural lens of some false gospel that is actually condemnation. And Paul is clear in verse 12 of what he says these men should do. I wish that those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. And we have to get into a little bit of a biology lesson here and a little bit of surgical discussion, but circumcision is a delicate procedure. To emasculate oneself is to completely remove that member. That's Paul's sentiment. Oh, you want to really circumcise? Then do it all. Become a eunuch. And not only that, he says, I wish they would. It'll prove their piety. But you will take no other view For you were called to freedom, brothers. You were called to freedom. My brothers, my sisters, my siblings, in the grace of God. He's not talking to lost people. He's talking to regenerate, well, secure and sealed saints who are inundated with the confusion of works. And in some way, it's causing them trouble because they know the truth. But this makes sense, too. And you were called to freedom. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. I've already given away part of the answer here, but let's take the obvious. Don't use grace as a license for sin. Paul already deals with that. Of the flesh. But in the context here, what is he talking about? Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for your flesh to find confidence in itself. for your flesh to take on some circumcision, for your flesh to do some kind of work. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for sin. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? Stop disobeying the truth by obeying the law. Now this is strange verbiage because to the ear that is culturally smashed, that's just so full. It's like if you swim a whole lot and you're underwater for a long, long time, sometimes you get water in your ear and it doesn't come out very quickly. I've had to get, I was in a pool one time for like four days straight doing some things and I had water in this right ear for a week. It obviously hurt. And you'd hit it, then you'd get a headache, you know. And that's the way I feel like so many religious, evangelical, Protestant, false converted people are. They've just got water in their ears and they're so attuned to hearing the false gospel they can't hear anything else. But I think sometimes too that believers can get stuck in that pool and they can have water in their ear. And sometimes it's easy. To think, wow, you know, you're saying we're not supposed to obey Christ. No, I'm not. We are supposed to obey Christ. Thank God he's clear and pure in his commandment. Just one. See it in John 14, 15, 16. We see it in 1 John. This is the commandment that you've had from the beginning, but it's a new commandment that I give you. You love one another. You love one another. This is the whole law. And you're thinking, James, you are really twisting it. Just keep reading. We've already heard it tonight. It's in the text. It's not my imagination. It's logical argument. It is the next step here. Don't use this freedom as an opportunity for you just to, of course, fall into sin, but more importantly, don't use it as an opportunity for you to do and practice things that would warrant someone thinking that you don't hold to the gospel. Don't put confidence in your flesh, because what's going to happen if you or I get to a little place, and let's just say it is circumcision, we all partake in it, and we feel pretty good, but what's next? And what if we take circumcision with a little bit of complaint? Was it good? Was it good enough? Did it work? Did we take baptism with the right heart? Was it in the right means? Was the guy holding his hand up saying in the name of the Lord Jesus, was he saved? Was it a Baptist church? Was it a brick store? Was it outside? Was it in a river? Was it cold? Was it hot? Did I have a robe on? Did I have a shirt on? Was I in swim trunks? These conversations, everybody's worried about it. Everybody's looking to try to find some way of making sure that they're doing what's required of them correctly. And that's all they think about. This is an opportunity for the flesh. Stop doing it. On top of the other things, obviously put these things to death, which are wicked and evil in practice. How is this seen then? Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. In other words, don't please yourself. Don't look to satisfy your flesh. Don't look to do things that do stuff just for you and that give you things, but do things for others. Live in your flesh through love. You serve one another. You serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But what happens? In the midst of the fellowship of the saints who hold to the gospel of grace, the patience of the elite is gone. The security of the weak is damaged, and then everybody's taking sides on who they're going to back. So the weak brothers and sisters among us who are frail, who doubt, who are always coming asking the same thing, I'm just not sure. And we give them the gospel, we encourage them, and today they go home confident. Tomorrow they come back, I'm scared. We have to be patient with those who doubt. And yet there are the others who are staunch and they're like, I've got all the right answers. This is the truth of the gospel. I'm not hearing it. I mean, you know, they just, they don't want to hear it. They do the dumb and dumber idea. They just like the Acts chapter six and seven. They cover their ears and they yell and scream because they don't want to hear the gospel coming out of Stephen's mouth. And so opportunity for the flesh is when there is this heresy. Heresy, by definition, means difference of opinion when it divides. That's what it means. I don't care what your Bible dictionary says. Entomology is not new. Use it. Learn the words. PhDs, learn the words. This, anything that divides the intimacy of the brothers and sisters is heresy. It is the dividing point, not necessarily the differences. So when we see the differences, Paul says there must be heresies among you. Why? Because we've got to know in the context of the fruit of the mouth of the confession, we need to know who is and is not the believer. But when it comes to the struggle in that, when it comes to when people come in who try to preach the law, we don't want to use then our freedom to just devour one another. We're to serve one another. How are we to serve one another? If I'm all screwed up in the head about the confidence in Christ, are you still obligated to serve me and love me and help me and grow me? Yes. Just because I'm a fruitcake and it sounds like I might have forsaken the grace of God, you are still obligated to serve me. Now, of course, if I'm being divisive, You get warned, and then, what does Jude say? Warn them once, and when the dividing stops, when the raw tearing and the opposition and the biting and the devouring stops, then everybody's okay. But if the biting and the devouring don't stop, we take those who bite and we put them out there with the dogs, because dogs bite. And when they come back and say, please let me back in, we love them all the way to the bank. We take their word for it. We take it for face value and we bring them back into the fold. And when they try it again, I'm not saying that's a one-off. Yep, today and tomorrow and today and tomorrow. You know, we got some sense. We know what's up. But we should love each other. And that's where he's going in verse 16. We walk by the Spirit, we will not think of ourselves. We will not be consumed with our own desires. We will not be consumed in the sense. So is there a way for a true believer to not walk by the Spirit? Yes. Is there a way for a true believer to believe without the Spirit? No. Now we're getting into a function of being believers together, which is what the whole book of James and the whole book of 1 John is all about. It's not evangelism. It's let's get to the heart of it. Christ died for us. Let us live for one another. And in doing so, we live for Christ. And in loving one another, we love Christ. Let us hold all that we have in this world loosely for the sake of our brothers and sisters. Even when we are speaking the truth in love that hurts, we do it in a way that would destroy our countenance, that would destroy our joy if we hurt one of our brothers and sisters in the faith. The whole law. For we are free, and Christ has set us free, and we are free to live together and love one another. And that's where he's going. That's where he's going. Let's pray. Father, there's opportunity for me in my heart to begin to evaluate even this commandment of love in light of my salvation. Lord, rebuke me through your word this night not to do that. Give me clear and secure faith to hold to Christ. And because of faith given by Christ, the faithfulness of Christ and His love for me, you can grow your spirit. through your word to help me love your people. May we all pray that for each other this very day. In Jesus name. Amen.