A Little Leaven Leavens The Whole Lump

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. Here in Galatians chapter 5, look at verse 11. The apostle Paul writes,. And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution?

Then the offense of the cross has ceased. I think you know that we live in a day and age where everybody is offended. People get offended over the littlest things. But there is an offense that goes way back, and that is the offense of the cross.

The scripture says that the gospel of Christ is a stumbling block to the Jews. To the Gentiles, it seems like foolishness, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God unto salvation. But the gospel, let's face it, it is very offensive to many people for different reasons, I suppose, in different ways.

First of all, the whole idea of telling someone they need to be saved in the first place can be offensive. What do I need to be saved for? Why do I need to be born again? I was born okay the first time.

There's even a bumper sticker for that. Then the message that God punished his only son on the cross, that offends people. Why would that be necessary? Because sin had to be dealt with. Sin had to be punished.

And of course, even saying the word sin, using the word sin, that offends people. It's just a mistake. No, it's called sin. People who want to hear love and more love, they don't like to hear about sin.

So that's offensive, and the gospel is an offense for a variety of reasons. But here in the book of Galatians, it's an offense for a very different reason, a very specific reason. The gospel that the apostle Paul preached was the gospel of grace.

The gospel of grace devoid of any human merit. Paul preached that salvation was what? You know it by now. Grace alone, faith alone, in Christ alone. You say it. I say it every week. You say it. It is by grace alone, faith alone, in Christ alone.

It's not by your good works. It's not about keeping the law of Moses. You're not saved because you got circumcised or did some ritual or rite. Saying that it's by grace only or it's by faith alone, it's like an assault on people's pride.

That's why people are offended at the gospel, saying that Jesus is the only Savior, that, and then that it has nothing to do with works. It's an assault against those who are self-righteous and think that they can work for it.

So the context, as I think we all know by now, if you've been following along, the context of Galatians is the Judaizers had been misleading the people into thinking that salvation was, I mean Jesus is involved, but really it's faith plus works, faith plus circumcision.

And the term that we talked about last week, what is that? What is that called? It's called legalism. The idea of salvation through the works of the law, that is legalism. Today people use the word legalism to describe a whole bunch of other stuff that really isn't legalism per se.

But legalism is, yeah, salvation through faith plus the works of the law. So by Paul stressing that it's all by grace, it's an assault on people's pride. It's the offense of the cross. And there's another element to that we're going to look at a little later on.

You remember back in chapter 3, what did Paul say? If salvation could come through the law, then what? Christ died in vain. So it's one or the other. So look at verse 11 again, he says, If I still preach circumcision, apparently some were saying that Paul actually agrees with the Judaizers.

That was the rumor apparently. But Paul says, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. In other words, if I were preaching a gospel of works, nobody would be offended.

But they are offended, therefore that's not what I'm doing. So apparently there was some misinformation. Because we kind of know the story. We've been hearing about it week after week. But the Galatians, they are in the dark.

There's no TV. There's no radio. There's no social media. They can't text Paul and ask him what his official position is. They only know what they hear from other people. So the Galatians don't really know what's going on.

But Paul is writing this letter to do what? To set the record straight. And let me just stop here and say, aren't you glad we have the Bible? Aren't you glad we have all of this? Setting the record straight in one volume.

We can just look to the scripture. There's a question. There it is.

It's in the book.

The answer is in the book. So we don't have to worry about being in the dark. If we were, yeah, if there was no scripture, how would we ever know? This is why we go through the scripture verse by verse.

So we don't have to be like the Galatians. Look at verses 7 through 9. Paul began, this is the section we're looking at. Starting in verse 7 he says, you ran well. He didn't say you're running well. He said you ran well.

What does that tell you? Yeah, you ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from him who calls you God. He says a little leaven leavens the whole lump. So you started out well, but things, I hear things haven't been going so well lately.

Why?

Because they had been listening to the wrong people. Listening to the wrong person can really mess up your spiritual walk. They had been straying in the direction of legalism, which again we talked about last week.

So this question of who hindered them, it's rhetorical. Paul knows who hindered them. It was the Judaizing false teachers, and they had fallen into the ditch. The false teachers did. They fell into the ditch of legalism, and they're trying to bring other people there into the ditch with them.

And Paul says this persuasion or their teaching and what they're trying to convince you of, this is not of God. Okay, you need to know this is not of God. Paul's doctrine, on the other hand, was of God.

Paul received revelation directly from Jesus Christ. The Judaizers didn't. And Paul worked miracles to prove it. The Judaizers worked no miracles. So what were the false teachers doing? They're taking the word of God.

They had some truth, but they were twisting it and distorting it. And the problem was starting to spread. And that's where you get the leaven. So he says in verse 9, that's why he mentions the leaven.

What does he say?

A little leaven does what? Leavens the whole lump. What is leaven? Who knows what leaven is?

Yeast.

Right, it's just an old-fashioned word for yeast. So any of you who bake bread at home, you know what leaven is used for, and you know how that works. I've never baked a loaf of bread, but I know if there's no leaven in there, it's flat, right?

Am I right about this?

Yeah, it's flat.

You put in yeast, and that causes it to rise. And you only need a little bit of yeast, and it kind of can reproduce itself and then spread through the whole dough. So he mentions this in verse 9, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Let's turn to Matthew chapter 16 for a moment. I think it's important to expand on this point in verse 9, that a little leaven indeed does leaven the whole lump. Usually in the Bible, if I ask you, I know what you're going to say.

But what does leaven represent in Scripture? Sin. Okay, so most of you know that leaven usually, not always, but it usually represents sin. So the idea is in a local church, if there's open sin being practiced, I mean private sin is bad too, but nobody knows about it.

But if it's open sin in a church, it sends the message. People look at that. It's open. Nothing's being done about it. But people see it, and they conclude, oh, well, that's fine then, right? This must be fine.

And it starts out maybe one or two people doing it. The message is sent that this is no problem. And then one, two turns into five, ten, and then 20 and 30. And then it, like yeast, spreads through the whole dough.

Sin spreads through the whole body. So leaven usually represents sin. But in Galatians, it actually represents false doctrine, which technically is sin, but specifically it's referencing false doctrine.

Look at Matthew 16, starting in verse 5. It says, now when his disciples, Jesus, of course, when his disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

And they reasoned among themselves, saying, is it because we have taken no bread? I think it's worth pointing out in the previous chapter, Jesus had fed the 4 ,000 with seven loaves of bread. Guys, are you really worried about this?

Didn't you see what just happened?

They didn't get it.

Verse 8. But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, oh, you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves? Because you have brought no bread. Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the 5 ,000 or how many baskets you took up?

Nor the seven loaves of the 4 ,000 and how many large baskets you took up? How is it you do not understand that I speak to you or I did not speak to you concerning bread? But to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees were kind of the liberals and the conservatives of their day. The Sadducees didn't believe in the miraculous. They didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in angels and the supernatural.

The Pharisees were sort of like the conservatives. And they were right about a lot of things, but they just had no love. And they hated, actually both sides hated Jesus. So, Jesus is saying, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Verse 12. Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of what? The doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The point is, bad doctrine is like leaven. Bad doctrine, it spreads and it goes in and through everything and it has disastrous results.

It can infect a whole body. So, bad doctrine, we know this, right? Bad doctrine leads to what? Bad doctrine leads to bad behavior. The bad doctrine of legalism had led to the bad practice of the persecution of Christ's disciple, among other things.

And now there was a risk for a church split. Multiple churches in the region of Galatia, you could have many churches splitting. So, with the churches at risk, Paul makes the statement, hey, remember, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Now let's go back to Galatians chapter 5. So, the Judaizers are really having a negative influence. And once they convince one person, then that person brings that false doctrine to somebody else and they convince someone else.

And then that person goes and tells someone else and it just spreads from there. And it's like an infection. It'll just continue to spread, continue to spread, unless something is done about it. That's what Paul's trying to do.

He's trying to do some surgery here. Now, by the way, on the positive side of things, talking about false doctrine spreading, on the positive side of things, this is how Christian discipleship should work.

That's how discipleship should be happening. It should just spread. It should spread like leaven. Well, leaven is always a reference to sin.

Not always.

The gospel or the kingdom of God is like leaven, Jesus said. Jesus in Matthew 13, 33 tells a very short parable. He said, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.

You think about it. The gospel of Christ started out over in the Middle East with one man and 12 disciples, a few women. It's just this small group of people. And yet it spread and it spread. And now it covers the whole earth.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Moores Corner Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, moorescornerchurch .com.

We'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, with the grace of God, be with you.