The Stakes Are High

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.

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We're currently studying Galatians in a series called Off the Chain, Finding Freedom in Galatians.

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Here's Pastor Don Filsack. We're going to continue through the book of Galatians with a new chapter.

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So we're going to jump into Galatians chapter 5, and like usual, I wanted to just get our thoughts moving towards God's Word before we come to Him in worship, so I'm going to take just a few minutes here and introduce this text of Galatians 5, 1 through 12.

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Now remember, we're jumping back into the middle of argumentation that Paul has been giving all through this book for a gospel that is based on grace instead of law.

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That is, that salvation comes to us as a gift from God and not based on works or based on the things that we accomplish or do.

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But how many of you know that grace can become kind of a muddy word, a fuzzy word in our culture? Would you agree with that? That grace is used in a lot of different ways, and it's something that can be sometimes difficult to define.

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And part of it is that grace is an overarching theme in Scripture. You're not going to turn to a chapter and verse that describes and defines.

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Now here is the definition of grace, and then lays it out that way for you. Grace is more an operating theme that we see all throughout

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Scripture. We see the word itself used, but it's that overarching theme in the

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Bible. It is the concept that the way that salvation comes to us is as a gift, not as a wage that we earn, not as a payment for works that we have done, but it is something that is unmerited.

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It is something that is undeserved. It is unearned, and it is something that is a gift from God, and that is the concept of grace.

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Salvation comes to us as a gift. Paul has been seeking to make that abundantly clear throughout the book of Galatians.

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He's been basically saying there's a way of approaching life that looks like laws and rules and regulations, and doing a bunch of stuff to think that you're becoming better in God's eyes, and that's not the way of a

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Christian life. The way of the Christian life, the way we understand it is that we come into faith by grace.

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It's a gift from God, and then we walk forward in our lives based on grace, not based on laws and rules and regulations.

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He's made it clear that apart from Christ, without that one important, all -important piece of salvation that is

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Jesus Christ crucified, died on the cross for us, paying the penalty, all of humanity is enslaved to something.

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All of humanity in general, but individuals who are apart from Christ are enslaved to something.

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And either we are enslaved to laws, rules, and regulations, that is, being kind of a moralistic religious enslavement.

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Can you picture that in your minds? Maybe some of you have experienced that to some degree. Maybe some of you are still rustling through that, a sense in which you are enslaved to laws and rules and regulations, attempting to make your life better for God.

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Or we're enslaved to our own desires and sins. There's really two kind of basic categories of enslavement.

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But in reality, if we're honest with ourselves, we're probably more prone to being enslaved to both.

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How many of you know life is never quite cut and dried, it's like I've got this problem but not this problem. Well, the two kind of marry together at some point.

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The dark ages in world history were dark particularly because of the wedding of these two enslavements in established religion.

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So absolute power and politics and religion were married with very ugly results. Would you agree with that?

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Any of you who have studied history would say that you see how having an exterior veneer of religiosity and having a boiling, seething sin under the surface is an ugly mess in our lives.

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And if we're honest, all of us to some degree have that going on simultaneously, where we desire to project forward an other self, a self that looks good, we have a veneer of goodness and righteousness, self -righteousness, but underneath we know, do you know yourself?

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You know your struggles? You know your sins? You know the darkness that you see in your own heart? You lead off with that in a conversation when you meet with somebody for the first time?

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All the crud and the junk? No, no, it's always like hey, everything's going good, fine, you know, excellent.

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But Paul's going to suggest to us that in Christ there is a new way to live our lives, no longer based on laws and this intense work at trying to project forward a self -righteousness, but also no longer based on slavery to our own desires, but a life of freedom.

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We're going to see the word freedom in our text this morning. And that's freedom to love. Freedom to become what we were created to be.

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Freedom to say no to sin. Freedom to genuinely serve each other.

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That kind of freedom. So as we come to the text this morning and then we come to worship and songs, let's come as those who have been set free by Jesus Christ, who is the

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Son of God. So let's read this text, Galatians 5, 1 through 12. If you grab the Bible in the seat back in front of you, that's page 834, so that'd be easy to find there.

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And if you don't own a copy of the Bible or an English Standard Version, which is the one that I use, you can take that one with you.

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We want everybody to have a copy of the Word of God. Follow along as I read Galatians 5, 1 to 12.

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And remember, this is the Word of God to us this morning. For freedom Christ has set us free.

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Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision,

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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.

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You are severed from Christ. You who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace.

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For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love.

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You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

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A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

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But if I, brother, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed.

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I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. Let's pray.

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Father, as we have an opportunity to come and worship, there is a concept in this passage of faith working through love.

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And Father, I ask for that to become reality for all of us. Father, that as we encounter your word, you would change us from the enslavements and the things that hold us down to recognize that it is for freedom that you have set us free.

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And as we walk through this one particular illustration of circumcision, Father, that you would make abundantly clear to us how that applies to our daily life here and now.

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Father, that we would be transformed and changed by encountering not your word alone, but you through your word, that your spirit would, which is alive in our hearts, would ignite the truth and change us and transform us.

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And Father, as we have an opportunity to sing songs before you, I ask that this would not be an exercise of singing, not an exercise of our vocal cords, not an exercise of our voice, but it would be an exercise of our hearts and humility before you, and exalting in joy over our salvation,

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I ask this in Jesus' name. Make sure you have your Bibles open to Galatians 5, 1 through 12.

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I know some people came in after I made that, after we read that passage. So it's page 834, again, in the

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Bible, in the seat back in front of you. I want you to be able to look at the text as we walk through it this morning. Start off here with a very, very plain, direct statement.

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For freedom, Christ has set us free. For freedom,

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Christ has set us free. For freedom, Christ has set us free.

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For freedom, Christ has set us free.

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Now, at face value, that statement might make some of us say, duh, like, thanks,

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Paul. I was thinking it was for slavery that Christ set us free, but thank you for clarifying that. But as I broke this verse down, it's full of some very important answers.

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Just this very pithy, just small statement has some radical things to say about our salvation.

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Who has set us free, according to this text? Christ. What exactly has

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He done in salvation? He has set us free. When did

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He set us free? In the past. He has, past tense, set us free.

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Why did He set us free? For the purpose of freedom.

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There was a life, there is a life, that God desires each one of us to live.

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And that life is characterized by this word, freedom. Something about the word freedom has something to do with the way that Christ desires you and me to live.

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It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. And it could not be accomplished through slavery to the law.

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It couldn't be accomplished while you were still a slave to idolatry. It could not be accomplished while you were still a slave to your self -centered living.

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And so He has set us free that we might live, therefore, now a life of freedom. Now a word about this freedom is important, very important.

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Scripture is very clear that there is a way that God wants you to live. There is good and bad.

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There are categories of sin. You should be in the process in your life of shunning sin, of pushing sin away, of what is called repentance, of turning your back on sin and turning towards God.

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Scripture reveals to us what is pleasing to God. Freedom in Christ could never accurately be construed from the pages of Scripture.

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You're not going to dig into Scripture and walk away with the conclusion that I've been set free to do whatever

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I will please. Whatever pleases me. I've been set free to take care of myself.

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You're not going to walk away. Would you agree with me? Those of you who have read some of Scripture, would you agree that that's not going to be your end conclusion?

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You read the Bible and you go, okay, I've been set free just to do whatever I want to please myself. That's not the kind of freedom that we're talking about.

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We are not set free to serve ourselves. We are set free from serving ourselves.

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Because our deepest and greatest joy is going to come in serving others and in serving God. And so that's what's going on here in the text when we talk about freedom.

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We are free like a train is most free when it stays on the tracks. Have you heard that illustration used before?

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Some of you, nobody's heard that illustration? Think about a train. Think about a train. What's a train designed to do?

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Take a train, set it out in a cornfield, no tracks, and get that engine fired up.

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What's going to happen? Is it going to go anywhere? It might even tip over, okay?

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But it's not going anywhere. It can churn that engine and those wheels and you might burn it out or whatever. But it's not going to go anywhere.

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A train is meant to be on the tracks. And I would say that Jesus has given us two tracks that our lives are supposed to be on.

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And it's His work picking us up like an engine out in the middle of the cornfield, like a crane, picking us up and setting on these two tracks.

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Two tracks, two things that sum up the law. The entirety of the Old Testament law is summed up in two things.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second, love your neighbor as yourself.

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Those are the two rails of the train tracks of our lives and we are set free.

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Freedom for a human being looks like being placed on that track, on those twin tracks of loving

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God and loving others. Are you getting what I'm saying? And that's freedom. Where in our minds sometimes we tend to think of freedom in terms of a libertarian type of freedom where that's just a big fancy word that means anything goes.

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Libertarian, everything is free. Every single component aspect. And if you're not free to jump off the tracks and do what you want, then you're not genuinely free.

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I mean, can you relate to that in our culture, the way that our culture tells us that? So we ought to be set free to do whatever we want.

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You are. You're free to jump the tracks if you want. You can go ahead and, but what's that going to do for your life?

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Is that going to be a benefit to you? A train steaming on the tracks that goes off the tracks? Good job.

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Great. How's that working for you? Are you getting what I'm saying? I mean, you have the freedom to sideline your life.

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You have the freedom to go ahead and derail things, right? But is that, how's that going to work for you?

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Is that what you've been set free to do? I know you've been set free to be on the tracks of God's will by loving

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Him and loving others. And that's what we're talking about. And so Paul commands the Galatians and us through this letter to stand firm in our freedom, to stand strong in that freedom to love others and to love

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Christ or to love God. We are not to then submit again to the yoke of slavery that we once were under, that churning the wheels out in the middle of the cornfield, if you will.

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Whether it was a life of self -righteousness, trying to make ourselves look better so that we look better in others' eyes, so that maybe

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God might like us because, hey, it's a big – self -righteousness is a big comparison game, isn't it? As long as I look better than most of you,

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I feel okay about myself. And so it's a constant battle to try to look best.

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So whether it's that self -righteous lifestyle or a life of slavery to alcohol, sex, drugs, whatever has held you captive, you are to now stand firm and not reconnect your life to those old things.

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The yoke that he talks about here in verse 1, a yoke is a farm implement.

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It was primarily a chunk of wood with two half circles cut out of it for – to fit over an animal's neck.

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And then through a chaining process and bridling, the two animals were fixed together by a yoke.

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And usually I'm saying two, you could have four, you could have six, you could have 12, you could have all kinds of combinations of animals.

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But what it did is it made their efforts together, work together to pull as a unit. And so if you yoke two oxen together, you get double the pulling power, right?

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That's the point. But they are now working together as a unit. They're held at a strict distance apart from each other, and they're working together because that wood is rigid and it keeps – it holds onto the shoulders.

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Are you picturing what I'm saying here? What a yoke is like? And he's likening this, don't be yoked to those things that used to enslave you before.

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You know what they are. You know right now where you're sitting, you can think of, whether it's a primary yoking to self -righteousness, towards thinking more highly of yourself than you ought, is that your primary issue?

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Or is there – are there other enslavements, are there idols, are there other things that take over in your life and take the place that God rightfully owns?

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Don't, he's saying, stand firm, don't re -yoke yourself to those things.

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You see, Jesus asked his followers to yoke themselves to something, didn't he? He said, if you're going to come and follow me, take up my yoke.

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Yoke yourself to me, says Jesus. And then he went on to say, his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

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How many of you know, if you're pulling in the field of life alongside of Jesus, he's doing more than his fair share?

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That's what he means when he says his burden is – his yoke is easy and his burden is light. To be yoked to him is for him to pull you along.

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You get the privilege of being yoked to Jesus Christ and towards his labor and his work.

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But let me tell you this, the things that our heart gravitates towards enslavement to, those are heavy burdens.

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Those are things that are going to destroy and annihilate and break apart. Sin leads to death, death of something, death of relationships.

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All kinds of death comes as a result of sin. And that's reality.

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And so if we are choosing to yoke ourselves, re -yoke ourselves to those kinds of things, we're in trouble. Religious slavery, though, is no less a burden than illegal drugs, even though if you think about it, it's socially more acceptable to be religiously enslaved, right?

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To be enslaved to – and in all honesty, we might even say it's less detrimental in the short run, right?

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We might even categorize and say, better a life lived self -righteously than a life lived in licentious drugs and alcohol and raves and parties and all of that stuff, right?

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Would you say that on the external? The result for both is the same, if you really think about it.

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Is that right? But as a society, we might categorize those and say, yeah, better the one than the other.

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Both the self -righteous who is trusting in themselves for salvation and the wild and crazy who are living it up end up in the same place in the end.

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And Paul points out that obedience to even the law of Moses is dangerous ground as a basis for true hope.

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Even the law of Moses, even following the Old Testament laws is a dangerous thing if it is your basis for hope.

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Do you hear me? The law is – I'm not saying the law is a bad thing. I'm not saying the law is a dangerous thing. The law is dangerous as it becomes the central focus of your life.

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Paul says very blatantly, and he even uses the word behold, he uses the word look at the beginning of verse 2 because he expects what comes next to shock his listeners, to shock those who hear.

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He says if someone accepts circumcision of their own will as a religious duty, that they are making a hard choice of where they are going to place their trust for salvation.

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If they accept circumcision as a religious duty – since circumcision was seen as the initiation for a young male into the

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Old Covenant community, it's what it meant to become a Jew – he's saying you're coming under that.

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He says in essence, you've chosen law abiding over the sacrifice and grace, that is, gift of Jesus Christ.

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One who does this has not accepted Christ as the umbrella of protection from judgment.

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All of us are under the rightful, just judgment of God. Every human being, because they have broken

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God's law, they have broken His commands, they have walked away from Him in essence, and they need something to protect them from the wrath of God in the end.

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And it's if you can picture in your mind the wrath of God falling, and there's this large umbrella called

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Jesus Christ, and those who are under Him are protected from the falling wrath of God. But it's like we like to invent other umbrellas of our own devise.

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We like to think of ourselves as somewhat of an umbrella. We like to try to protect ourselves. Are you getting the image in your mind?

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What umbrella are you standing under? Is really the question. Christ is the one who will protect us from judgment.

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In this sense, he says, if you are standing under the law as your protection, if you're standing under your flesh, if you're standing under your own ability to keep the law, your own ability to please

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God, then Christ will be of no advantage to you. Do you see that in the text? Christ will be of no advantage.

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Only those who are firmly all in with Christ are going to receive the advantage from him in the final judgment.

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Only those who are all in and completely under his umbrella, only those trusting fully in Christ for salvation will actually realize that salvation and Christ will be of benefit to you.

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And in verse three, Paul restates it again with an important addition. You see, everyone who accepts circumcision as a sign of entering into a relationship with God, based on that old covenant way of thinking, are technically agreeing to keep the entire covenant.

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Now I've mentioned this a couple of times. Some of you are new here, but the concept of covenant is something that we've misunderstood. And so the idea of law, it's like we have misunderstood,

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I think, primarily in Evangelical Christian culture that the law, the Old Testament law, is a hodgepodge of rules, generic rules that God has given to humanity, things that he kind of thinks is a good idea for you.

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And so we can't quite make sense of the whole don't eat pork thing. And some of the things are just kind of mysterious to us.

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And what we're not understanding is that the law in its entirety was a contract between God and the nation,

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God and a specific people at a specific time, the Israelites. And that, you see, what we can't get our minds around is that the

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Ten Commandments are wrapped up in that same notion. And so we have a tendency to go, oh, the Ten Commandments are for us, right?

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But the other parts of the law are for them. And we end up dissecting the law in a way that it was never intended to be dissected.

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The law was not meant to be a pick and choose. I'll take this one, I'll take five of these, and you keep that one, and we'll do this, and we'll kind of have a barter for the law.

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No, no, no. It was a contract, like a lease agreement. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of a lease agreement you sign that you're going to keep, right?

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You sign the lease agreement, is it binding on you? All of it? A Jew knew nothing of separating out the

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Ten Commandments from the laws about how to maintain your beard, okay? There was none of that.

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I mean, it was all together. It was keep the law. This is the law. And the signature at the bottom of the page for a

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Jew was, for a male Jew, was circumcision. That's signing the document.

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You've agreed to the document. If you've undergone that right through a religious ceremony intentionally to bring yourself under the law, then you've now signed the document, says

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Paul. And you are now in agreement that you're going to keep the entirety of the law. That's what he's getting at here in this verse.

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If you want to seek righteousness through the law, then you ought to know in advance what you're signing up for.

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And he's saying that to the Galatians. The only hope for someone under the law is that they might completely obey the law in its entirety.

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Now, does anybody here in the room besides me find the notion of keeping everything that's written in the

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Old Testament law a little bit daunting? Maybe overwhelming a little bit? Maybe overwhelming is an understatement?

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Maybe a better word is impossible? Have you read Exodus, the second half of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy?

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Have any of you read that before? It's intense. There are people in modern times who have attempted to try to live according to the law.

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They haven't done it. I mean, notwithstanding, there's not even a temple to take a sacrifice to.

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You can't. You cannot do it. Scripture's not for the faint of heart, though.

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As we move through this text, Paul mystifies me at times. He uses all kinds of double entendres and plays on words here that get uncomfortable in Greek.

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But he says in our text that those who would enter into that legal relationship with God through circumcision have been severed from Christ.

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He's playing with words. That word severed means severed. If anyone thinks of himself as made right in God's eyes by keeping the law, then he says they have fallen from the vantage point of grace.

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It's like they've been climbing a mountain and they've come to the top and the pinnacle and they've seen grace and now they have fallen away from it.

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I believe two things are important for us to identify as some of us in our minds immediately move to the concept of losing your salvation.

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As I read that, did any of you think about that? Anybody as you read through, as I was reading through this passage earlier, were you thinking about the potential?

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I wonder if you can fall away from grace, if you can be severed from Christ. What does that mean? It's important I think for us to get down to the notion of those because the notion, that phrase severed from Christ, the phrase fallen from grace, sounds a lot to me like losing your salvation.

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Would any of you agree with me on that? Doesn't it sound like that? But first of all,

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Paul doesn't speak directly about the spiritual condition of those who he says have fallen. They have been separated from Christ and fallen away from grace, but it does not say they have fallen out of grace.

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There's different Greek words that are available for Paul to use. One is an in and then now removed kind of Greek word, and this one is a at the door of or up at the pinnacle of and have fallen away from.

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Do you see the difference between falling away from something and falling out of something? They were close.

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They were close to grace, but they've fallen away from it. But there's even something that's more significant in the text that I think matters, most important, is that Paul does not believe that these

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Galatians, I mean rather does believe that these Galatians are true believers and therefore they will not fall away.

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Paul presupposes that if you are in with Christ, you will not fall. Go ahead and look over at verse 10 for a second, a few verses down the road.

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He had confidence in the Lord that they would see things his way and that those false teachers among them would be punished.

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Paul takes for granted that the proof is in the pudding. If you are in Christ, you will persevere to the end.

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If you do not persevere until the end, then you were not ever in Christ.

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That might not be very comforting to us. I mean as a practical comfort, how does that work in your life then?

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Like am I in or am I out? Although it might not sound comforting,

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Scripture offers comfort for those who are in with Christ. But equally strong warnings to stand firm in your faith.

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Both are true. You can have comfort and assurance that God has saved you, but equally you are to be guarding your heart, to be careful and to be cautious.

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I do not believe that a person who is truly in with Christ, truly under the umbrella can ever be removed from being under that umbrella of salvation.

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I believe you will persevere to the end if you are in Christ. But I think there is a way to be confused.

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There is a way to think that you are in with Christ and you are not. And let me be clear, because some of you have sensitive consciences, the minute that somebody talks like this, you're like, maybe

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I'm out. Immediately you're like, I'm not a Christian, I'm pretty sure and I better pray again to accept

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Jesus Christ as Savior. Let me just say this very, very clear. If you believe that Jesus Christ is

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Lord, you want to be with Him someday, you have a longing, a sense in your heart that you're like, there's something beautiful about Jesus, there's something amazing about Him and I want

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Him to save me and I believe that He can save me. That's what's needed. That's it. Think in your life, have

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I done that and then am I living in that? If you're not living in that, then go back to that point and say, go ahead and say it again.

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Go ahead and say, Jesus, I need you and I want you and I know that I need you to save me because I'm more concerned with where you're at today than with some decision that you made when you were 10 years old.

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Do you understand what I'm saying by that? In all honesty, are you walking with Christ now?

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And if you're walking with Christ now, awesome. That means steps forward, steps back.

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You're going to have setbacks. Do you agree with me on that? You're going to have setbacks, but in reality, are you desiring

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God? You sense that in your heart. Does your spirit, as Paul said earlier, cry out,

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Abba, Father, I'm dependent upon you. I need you. That's key in the

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Christian life. But there are warnings to stand firm in His grace. You see, for those who live enslaved to the law or enslaved to self, there is very little hope.

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We don't sense that hope. For those who are under the law, think about this. When have you done enough to please

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God? Have you been to that stage in your life when you've been kind of trying to please God by your own works? How do you know when you've crossed the line into an assurance, any sense of hope that I've done enough now that God will like me?

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I've done enough now that I have hope that when I stand before Him, I'm going to be okay. There's no end to that.

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There's always more. Is there always more you could be doing? Always more to spin the tires and try to get yourself moving like that train out in the middle of the cornfield.

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Always more to try to push yourself forward, put some logs under the wheels or something, just anything to get some movement, right?

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Always more effort. And in verse five, Paul says, for those who approach

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God by faith, that is, trusting God to keep His promises to bless us through Jesus Christ, that's what faith is.

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The Spirit uses that faith to produce anticipation and hope that one day we will genuinely be righteous.

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Paul says that those who are in Christ eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

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Do you eagerly wait for that hope? Are you longing for the day of the return of Jesus Christ? Are you looking forward to His return when you hear, well done, good and faithful servant?

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Is your longing that one day you will be set free from sin? Is that in your heart?

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Do you want that day? Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

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For what? They will be satisfied. Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?

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Then you will be satisfied, says Jesus Christ. If your life is based on law, you live a life based on wishful, hopeful thinking.

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That maybe someday you will arrive, maybe someday by some chance you will prove yourself to be good enough.

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But for those who are under the promise, our faith is in the goodness and faithfulness of God.

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And that faith in the goodness of God drives us to bank on His promises. We can count on it, that He will present us one day righteous before His Father.

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Because in Christ, we no longer are motivated by law keeping, but according to the text, by faith working through love.

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That's our motivation now. The cross of Jesus Christ moves us to love because of the amazing model of love we have in Jesus Christ.

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Where did Jesus Christ model love for us? Where did

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He model that for us? On the cross. That is the place. The cross of Jesus Christ moves us to love because of the amazing model that we have.

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But it's not merely His example. It's not just that example that we have that motivates, but in trusting in His sacrifice for me,

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I experience what it means to be truly loved through the cross. I know love because of the cross.

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I understand what it means. A true love came to me at the cross. An honest love, a pure love, a sacrificially costly love,

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I encounter at the cross of Jesus Christ. Nowhere else in life have

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I encountered that kind of love. And that is the kind of love that has the power to transform the human heart.

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That is where the power comes from, is in recognizing and coming to the place of love and to the one who has loved us so much that He laid down His life for you and me.

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And that is why I keep encouraging all of us to keep the cross in our minds, to keep the cross in our hearts, to keep it before our eyes, seeing

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Him there, dying in our place is the way we are motivated to humility. It's the way we are motivated to sacrifice.

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The way we are motivated to love others is because we have seen His great love. The life of the

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Christian is ignited by the Spirit, informed by faith, fueled by the cross, and characterized by love.

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Let me say that again. The life of the Christian is ignited by the Spirit, informed by faith, fueled by the cross, and characterized by love.

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So then Paul goes on to say, to be circumcised or not to be circumcised in the end counts for nothing. It is irrelevant in Christ.

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All of these externals, all the law, all the things and the hoops that we can jump through and the different things that we can do to try to make ourselves more presentable or pleasing to God, it's irrelevant.

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And then you look down at verses 7 and 8, the Galatians who had started their race so well have now had hurdles placed in their way.

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It's like they've been out on the track running the two -miler and others have crowded into their lane, or better yet, have now placed hurdles.

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How many of you know there's no such thing as a two -mile hurdle? But now, good reason. If you've ever ran two miles, you know.

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But now there's hurdles placed in their lanes, and they are hurdles that they need to come over.

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The legalists, the people who want them to act more like Jews, are bringing the requirements of the law and they have interfered with the run, with the race of these people in Galatia, the churches in Galatia.

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And the persuasion, Paul says in verse 8, to follow the law has not come from Christ, has not come from the one who called them.

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There's persuasion that's coming from outside. And in verse 9, these false teachers came in, sprinkling a little falsehood with the good.

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How many of you know that that tends to be the way that false doctrine begins, that false belief begins?

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Just a little tick off of center, right? God wants us to go here, and it's right here.

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Somebody in an illustration in a message that I heard not too long ago said this, if God wants you to go this way, which way does

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Satan want you to go? If God wants you to go this way, which way does

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Satan want you to go? Any other way. Any other way.

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This way is fine with him. Just if God wants you to go this way, Satan wants you to go somewhere else.

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And that's the reality in the false teachers that are here. How many of you know that there's just a fine line here between following Old Testament law and not following Old Testament law as a

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Christian? Is it okay? I mean, thou shalt not murder, that sounds like good advice to me, sounds like a great command.

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Matter of fact, I'd love to just tell you, live by that one, okay? Don't kill. Don't lie. Don't cheat on your wife.

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You know, all of these things, I mean, they're good. But if that's the basis of your life, if that's the basis of your expectation that God now likes you, that's just right here.

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It's going just a tick off of God's will for you. Satan delights in that. God is disappointed with that.

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He says, I've provided the way. Jesus Christ is the way, not the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments isn't the way to please me.

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Jesus Christ is the way. He's the one who has done it. And so just like a little yeast mixed into a lump of dough has an effect on the entire loaf.

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By the way, we're talking about a cooking illustration. It's just totally gone on me. Okay, I don't really get this that much.

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But I'm going to take for granted that if you just mix a little yeast in some dough, does that do the whole thing? He's right here, okay?

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That's the way that false teaching works. And Paul is warning the church in Galatia that they are going to end up corrupted by this false teaching if they even allow just a little bit of it to permeate them, if they allow a little bit of it in.

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But he expresses again in verse 10 a confidence that they will choose the right in the end. He shows what I would call pastoral optimism that they will end up following Christ.

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He says, I trust better things for you, my people in Galatia. And verse 11 is like a tacked on argument, but as long as he has been talking about false teachers, he takes on one of the rumors that he's apparently heard that they're spreading about him.

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They're actually saying he endorses circumcision, that he's behind it. He wants people to be circumcised and follow the

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Old Testament law. And they're appealing to probably some of his practices, because Paul actually had one of his followers,

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Timothy, circumcised. So now they have a case study in which Paul actually circumcised one of his followers. He didn't do so for salvation, he did so for practical ministry purposes.

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But when it came down to it, now they're accusing him of, hey, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth here, Paul. You circumcised

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Timothy and now you're telling us that circumcision is not appropriate. What's the scoop here? Well, that all goes back to the previous verse here, for in Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

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It's not about whether or not a person is circumcised. It's clear from his statement in that verse 6 that circumcision was not a big religious deal to Paul one way or the other, to be or not to be.

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That's not an issue. In verse 11, he seeks to silence those rumors by saying he would not be still persecuted if he was preaching circumcision.

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He says, if I was preaching the Old Testament law, would the Jews even be upset with me? If he was preaching circumcision, then the offense of the cross would be removed is the way that he words it.

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Well, what is the offense of the cross in Paul's context? It is that someone can be saved apart from their own works.

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A person can be saved apart from their law. The notion that someone can be saved and enter into the eternal kingdom of God without first becoming a

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Jew was offensive to Jews. You get that? The offense of the cross in our context, where we live, is ultimately grace.

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And I would say in all contexts, wherever you go around the world, there is a common cross -cultural, multicultural human issue with one primary thing.

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We all sin in the same way, and it is pride. It is our desire to do it ourselves.

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It is grace, ultimately, that is the offense of the cross. That salvation is freely given is scandalous.

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As a matter of fact, the word offensive here is the word skandalon in Greek. It's where we get the word scandalous from.

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Grace, the gospel, the good news that you can be saved aside from your works is scandalous because we want people to work for it.

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And especially once you're in. Once you're in, you want to see people pay for it a little bit.

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You want to see them work. It's like we don't really want to extend too much grace to people, right?

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Have you ever heard that even said? People will state that. Well, I mean, you know, don't get crazy here.

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Don't become a walking mat, right? I mean, you know, you wouldn't want somebody to walk all over you like Jesus Christ was walked all over, right?

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You wouldn't want to be like him. Oh, wait, wait. Aren't we supposed to be like him? Grace looks sometimes like being walked on.

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How far are we willing to go with our understanding of grace? And it's offensive. It's offensive. It's scandalous to think of what grace really looks like.

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It looks like the man squandering, the young man squandering all of his father's wealth and then coming back and being welcomed into the family again.

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And his dad throws a party and kills the fatted calf for him. Scandalous. We want him to pay for what he did.

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Doesn't he owe his father back? That's grace. And it's offensive to our minds.

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It's scandalous. It's free. Humanity wants to do independently when the only way we can be saved is to become dependent.

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The only way we get into the kingdom is by dependence upon the provision of our father. If we could contribute just a little bit to our salvation, then we could feel a little bit better about ourselves, right?

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Would any of you admit that that might feel a little bit better to you? Anybody in the room would confess that maybe you're a little bit of a doer? You kind of like to get things done?

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No one? Nobody wants to raise their hand on that one? You kind of like to get things done? So it's kind of like, if I could just do a little bit,

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I'd feel better about what Jesus did for me, because then I'd feel like I'm paying him back a little bit for the life of the

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Christian. It's not paying back. I mean, I think some of us literally have that faulty notion in our mind that we're paying back the cross.

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You can't do it. It's offensive to think that any of us would pay back the cross. It is a life of gratitude.

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Thanks God for giving this to me. I can't. It's as offensive as my kids offering to pay me back for the

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Christmas presents I bought them. And if you'd be offended if your kids offered money for the

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Christmas presents that you bought for them, that you delighted in giving to them, and they're like, hey, well, we'll get installments, we'll get it over time, we'll get it back to you.

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No. No. Gratitude would be nice. I mean, like a thanks maybe on Christmas morning, you'd kind of enjoy that.

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That would be good, kids. Take notes. Thank your parents. That'd be good. And God proves himself faithful, competent, and sufficient as the sole originator of salvation so that he might be the one who is lifted high, so that no one can boast.

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So that we are not lifted high in our salvation, he is. And well, look at the time.

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I guess we should skip verse 12. That would be convenient, wouldn't it?

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At face value, at face value, verse 12 looks crass and juvenile.

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I'm not going to lie. Okay, does it not? When you read verse... Go ahead and read verse 12. I'll give you a second. Crass, juvenile, like Paul, come on, dude, for real?

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I have to preach on this? He's wishing these false teachers harm themselves, that they emasculate themselves, that they castrate themselves.

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The passage, by the way, has been full of double meanings. I haven't even hit all of them. I decided to just stick with a couple of them.

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He's... I mean, the Greek is just crazy. It's like, come on, dude. In essence,

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Paul here is truly angry. Can you see it? Does he look angry? He says, in essence, in a play on words,

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I wish that these cut -happy false teachers would go ahead and just finish the job.

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I wish they would just go ahead and cut themselves, go ahead and just end the process of... As long as you're just cut happy, just get busy.

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So in what way is this not a sinful outburst? How is it? I mean, anybody think it's sinful? I don't know.

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He's wishing harm to come to them, but in all honesty, I just was thinking about this from a different perspective.

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Christianity and the Bible are not for the faint of heart. There's some direct things that are in here that we have to tackle and take on.

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Even Jesus Christ himself said it would be better to cut off your hand or to pluck out your eye than to go into hell with an intact hand and eye.

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Do you remember him saying that? He said you take drastic measures when you see sin. You tackle it.

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You take it head on. You take aggressive measures against sin. He also said it would be better for someone to tie a heavy stone.

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He used a millstone as an example, but to tie a heavy stone around their neck and throw themselves in the sea, it would be better to do that than to cause one of his little followers to stumble in their faith.

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What are the false teachers in Galatia doing? Causing little young children in the faith to stumble.

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Do you see where that aggression comes from in Paul? I think we have a tame view of issues of faith, but faith is no trivial small thing.

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It is desperate. It is worth serious pursuit. It has significant eternal consequences, and Paul wants to make sure that those in Galatia in no uncertain terms know that he is taking these false teachers seriously and head on.

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He is being aggressive to them. So what is the circumcision of our day?

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There is this issue, a little bit strange, Old Testament, probably not really necessarily something that a lot of you think about or are struggling with or wrestling through to be circumcised or not to be circumcised, not there.

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I want to point out that in that culture, the way that we bring that over into our culture is that that is something that could have been easily perceived as a good thing to Christians in that day.

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After all, circumcision was the entrance ceremony to the old covenant with God. It could easily be misconstrued as something that gives you good standing in God's eyes, right?

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According to the old covenant. I think we are spot on when we equate circumcision in this passage with something like weekly church attendance.

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Does it seem like a good thing? Yeah. So it matches that. Or what about tithing, giving 10 % to the church or something like that.

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Or working at the Matawan food pantry. All of those things are good in and of themselves, right?

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Do you agree with that? But if any one of these things becomes the basis of a relationship with God, they become something extremely dangerous to your faith.

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In other words, if someone volunteers at the food pantry and then now thinks that God owes them something, or worse yet, that they now have a better chance of getting into heaven because they have volunteered at the food pantry, they are showing themselves to be severed from an understanding of Christ.

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They are not recognizing the centrality of Jesus Christ to salvation. They are saying, I think

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I'm going to jump from this umbrella to another umbrella. I'm not sure that I really need this covering of Jesus Christ.

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I think what I need is some more covering. I need something else. Are you hearing what I'm saying? If I ask you to fill in the blank here,

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I want you to think this through. What goes in the blank for you? God likes me because I blank.

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Fill in that blank for real, for yourself. What is in there? God likes me because I, and there's only one answer that counts.

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There's only one that makes Christ advantageous to you in the end.

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And that is God likes me because I have humbled myself before His Son, acknowledged

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Him as Lord, and asked Him to save me. That's it. That is the good news.

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That is what makes you acceptable to God. And as we come to communion this morning, we come to the place of remembering this.

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As we step to the table, we do more than take a cracker and a little cup of juice. We are tying into an ancient tradition initiated by Jesus Christ Himself.

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He told us to take this juice when we gather together and remember His blood that is the source of grace in the

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New Covenant, is the source of our forgiveness, it is the source of our hope, it is the way that salvation comes to us.

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He told us to take the bread, or the cracker, and to remember His body that was broken for us. He loves us, and He made a way for us to be forgiven.

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He has made a way for us to be set free from the things that entangle us. He's picked us up out of the cornfield and put us on the tracks so that we might be what we were made to be in Him.

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That we are no longer entangled and enslaved in sin. And the way for us to walk forward is the cross of Jesus Christ.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank

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You so much for Your grace. I thank You for the hope that I have of righteousness, that one day I will stand before You righteous and declared righteous and genuinely righteous because of the work of Jesus Christ on my behalf.

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That there is nothing I can add to or subtract from that, but that it is by Your grace working in me that proves to me through the outworking of my life that Your spirit is alive in here and doing it.

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Father, I recognize that some in this congregation might be struggling, even right now they might be wrestling with something that has marred that hope, that has gotten in the way of that hope.

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Father, I ask that You would help them to come and see me, or come and see Kyle, or one of the elders, or talk to their small group leader, or find somebody that they can talk with as a spiritual influence in their lives to bring the

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Word of God to bear. Because I recognize that there may be some in this room right now who are wrestling and saying, I'm not sure if I'm all in.

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I'm not sure if I'm under that umbrella of protection of Jesus Christ. I'm not sure if the engine's been picked up out of the cornfield and placed on the tracks because I keep spinning my wheels and I'm getting nowhere.

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Father, I ask that You would work in this congregation to bring about in us a genuine understanding of where we stand before You, that none would be here complacent about their faith in You, but they would seek out the avenues of answers, particularly those who are struggling right now.

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And for those who are all in with You, I ask that You would bring delight and joy to their hearts as we take communion and we remember the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ that has bought us for Your great kingdom.