WWUTT 1786 Christ Has Set Us Free, Part 2 (Galatians 5:1-15)

Many continue to put faith in their own works for their own salvation, but the scripture.

Is clear.

We are saved only by grace through faith in Christ alone. When We Understand the Text.

Introduction to Galatians 5 and the Gospel of Grace

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will. For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. Back to our study in the Book of Galatians. Our text today is in Chapter 5. This is Part 2 of the sermon that I began on Wednesday of last week, so we're going to pick up where we left off, and that's going to be in about verses 7 or 8, so let me read from verse 7 through verse 15 out of the English Standard Version.

This is the word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the churches in Galatia. 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 were 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. Taking this text and giving it a modern application, I begin here with an example of how someone might turn from the true gospel of justification by faith to a false gospel of justification by faith plus works.

Here is part two of the message entitled, Christ Has Set Us Free. But let's apply this to something a little more immediate to the context of Paul's exhortation.

To the Galatians.

Justification by Faith Versus Justification by Works

Let's say someone were to leave this church and become Catholic. They will have abandoned the true gospel of justification by faith for a gospel of works, which is really no gospel at all. The Bible says, it is by grace you have been saved through faith and not of works, Ephesians.

2 .8.

But in the Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 9, the Catholic Church says, if anyone saith that by faith alone the impious is justified, let him be an anthema. Catholic Catechism 14 .46 says that penance and baptism are necessary for justification, and the fathers of the church, namely the priests, bishops, cardinals in submission to the Pope, must be the ones to administer these sacraments.

That's justification by faith and works. Like Catholicism, the Eastern or Greek Orthodox Church believes that justification by faith is a false doctrine. Orthodox minister Theodore Stylianopoulos has said, not only loving deeds, but also the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist are decisive to salvation.

Stylianopoulos says that the Apostle Paul makes this clear in the book of Romans. But it's in Romans 4 .5 where Paul wrote, to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Within the Pentecostal movement, there is the insistence that you must be baptized in order to be saved, and you must speak in tongues to prove that you have received the Holy Spirit. From the Campbell Stone movement that includes the Church of Christ and the First Christian Church, there's the teaching that you must be baptized in order to be saved, and you must be baptized in the Church of Christ, or it's not a real baptism.

Do you need to be baptized?

Yes.

Does baptism save you?

No.

You need to be baptized like you need to love your neighbor. Such works do not save you. You do them because God has saved you. You are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Or you believe a different gospel.

If you add a single work to the gospel, as if to say the work of Christ was insufficient and we need to do something in order to merit our salvation, that's a different gospel. There are many false religions that claim to be Christian, but test their doctrine.

If they add works to the gospel, it's not the gospel. Working for your salvation is not good news. Binding yourself to the law is a yoke of slavery. They might quote their Bible verses, and it might sound biblical, but again, as Paul said in Galatians 5, 8, and 9, this persuasion is not from him who calls you.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump. In other words, a little bit of evil corrupts the entire teaching. In Matthew 16, 6, Jesus warned His disciples, watch out and beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Yes, the scribes and the Pharisees taught the people from the Scriptures and the Law and the Prophets, but they also added to the Law, and they said, do this and you will receive eternal life. You can't teach a message of works so long as you catch the highlights of the gospel.

It is not God who says you must be a legalist in order to be saved. It is God who says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11, 28 -30. Here in Galatians 5, 10, Paul says, 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.

Paul has confidence that the Galatians will return to the gospel they were first taught and that God will not punish them for taking the turn that they have taken. Though Paul has been harsh with them in this letter, he is giving them the benefit of the doubt.

They've had a momentary lapse of judgment. No serious harm has been done. They will get rid of the false teacher, and he alone will answer for his false teaching without taking the rest of the church with him.

Paul's gracious attitude toward the Galatians in this way. My brothers and sisters, this is a lesson for each one of us. It is easy to become an armchair theologian criticizing everyone else's doctrine, like a beer-guzzling football fan who thinks he knows a thing or two about throwing a football when a 6 '5", 270-pound lineman in football armor is bearing down on you.

It's quite another thing to be an active participant in the body of Christ. Getting in the game. Knowing how to apply God's Word. And helping your teammates grow stronger and face the challenges that are ahead.

Ephesians 4, 11 -16 says that God gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. We're reading from the apostle together here as we're going through the book of Galatians.

You're listening to a shepherd, that would be the pastor, teach you what Christ's apostles delivered and how it applies to our present-day context. And you as a saint, a follower of Jesus, are being equipped with this knowledge so that you may do the work of ministry and you may build up the body of Christ.

Going on, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every shifting wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather, speaking the truth in love.

We are to grow up in every way into Him who is the Head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Are you the kind of person that sits back and criticizes everyone else's sin or weighs their righteousness against your own so that you can feel better about yourself, believing that a critical spirit is doing your part?

Or, are you fulfilling the command of the body of Christ to work together, growing each other, speaking the truth in love, building one another up? You are not out for yourself. You're out to glorify Christ by loving His body.

The Church as a Body, Army, and Place of Mutual Edification

Coming back to the metaphor of a soldier, which I started with this morning, the Spirit says, Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

2 Timothy 2 .4. My fellow saints, this is a war that we are in. A war against the forces of darkness. Don't flank your fellow soldiers or attack them from behind. Get on the front lines and fight together.

It's a lot more difficult to fight one another when you're standing side by side, facing the same direction and going up against the real enemy. Show grace to one another. For God has shown grace to you.

Paul showed grace to the Galatians and didn't write them off as being an anathema. Cursed. No good. You've gone after a different gospel. Paul knew that with his patient and loving rebuke, they would come back to believing the words of a true apostle of Christ.

In verse 11, Paul says, But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. He's pointing out to the Galatians that he's being persecuted by the Judaizers, exactly the group that has led the Galatians astray.

And Paul is being persecuted for preaching justification by faith alone. If the word of an apostle was justification by circumcision, then Paul wouldn't be persecuted. Again, the message is not and cannot be justification by faith and works.

It's justification by faith alone, or it's nothing. And we get to verse 12, which is just one of the most brilliant insults in the whole Bible. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

Now remember, this argument is over justification by circumcision, and Paul is saying, I wish the false teachers telling you that giving you this false teaching would just go the whole way and cut the whole thing off.

Now, while that might sound like a bar room level insult, it's actually quite brilliant in its spiritual implications. These false teachers are cut off from Christ because they teach this false gospel.

Remember back to verse 3 where Paul said, You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. That's exactly where these false teachers are. So Paul is saying, I wish they would go the whole way and cut themselves off from the churches they're not actually a part of so they will stop causing so much trouble.

That's a frightening consequence, to be cut off from the body of Christ. For to be cut off from Christ's body is to be cut off from the head who is Christ, is to be cut off from eternal life. We shouldn't wish that upon anyone.

And that is why Paul is writing this letter to the Galatians, so that the condition of these fallen teachers would not be the condition of these Christians whom Paul loves and is fighting for. Verse 13.

You were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity of the flesh, but through love serve one another. Look out for one another. Protect one another. Build each other up.

The church is to be a safety. You let the wolf into the sheep pen, and what good are the fences? As I read to you from the Ephesians passage, we are to stabilize one another from being tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every shifting wind of doctrine.

If you're not studying sound doctrine, it's impossible to steer the vessel clear of danger, nor will you know to trust the guy teaching sound doctrine from the one who's not. We're all obligated to know the truth and speak the truth in love.

Through love serve one another. Verses 14 and 15 now. 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.

If you're fighting with one another, it's actually because your doctrine is bad. If you do not heed the Lord Christ's command to love and serve one another, you will bite and devour one another. There's no neutral ground here.

You either love each other or you show apathy and contempt for one another. You will be as wolves rather than sheep. You will be as the enemy rather than fellow soldiers. James 4 .1 says, What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? My friends, conflict of this kind, biting and devouring one another, this is a passion of the flesh. It's responding according to our feelings rather than listening to the Spirit of God.

But as we read in Galatians 5 .16, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And that's where we will pick up next week. I remind you once again that in Christ Jesus, we are set free from the bondage to our flesh.

Christ the Warrior and the Call to Endure Strife

The resolve to your conflict is Jesus Christ. He is the resolution to every conflict. A day is coming on which Christ is going to wage the war that will end all wars. In Revelation 19, the picture is Christ returning on a white horse and the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, will be following Him on their white horses.

And from His mouth comes a sharp sword with which He will strike down the nations and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. Revelation 19, verses 14 and 15.

And as a result of this final war, we who are in Christ Jesus, who have a promised citizenship with Him in heaven, we will dwell with God forever in everlasting peace. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be pain nor mourning nor crying anymore for the former things will have passed away. In the meantime, we deal with strife. And you must endure strife. Do not cause strife. The world strives against itself.

They bite and devour. Don't do that to each other.

Someone may do it to you.

Don't do it back. As we read in 1 John 3 .10,. And by this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Matthew 6, 44 -45, Jesus said, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons and daughters of your Father in heaven. Jesus has called you to freedom in the kingdom of God.

Do not live as if you were still a slave to this world. Don't give in to temptation. Give it to Christ.

Don't fall into despair. Fall on Jesus.

Don't forget the gospel. Trust the Lord and be there for one another so that we may be reminded that we do not fight these battles alone. We are reminded that we live in a fallen world, especially on a weekend like this when we remember our fallen soldiers.

In this world you will have tribulation, but take heart, Jesus says, I have overcome the world. John 16, 33 For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore. Do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.