Galatians 5:1-6

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Pastor John and Pastor Jeff teach the book of Galatians

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Heavenly Father, thank you for another opportunity to open your word. Help us to love your word and cherish it,
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Lord, and for this opportunity to study Holy Scripture, Lord, we pray that our hearts would be open to it, that we would be conformed more into the image of Christ for having spent time in your word.
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In Jesus' name, amen. We had a house full of grandchildren over the weekend, which is both exhilarating and exhausting.
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What is it they're doing? An inestimable blessing, I'm out.
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Quote Mark playing. So if you've ever had out -of -town nieces and nephews come spend several days, it never is a complete half job on their way out.
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There's always something left behind. Yeah, something left behind. Sandy has a box on the kitchen table that's gotta go to the post office and stuff like that.
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So as I was getting ready to get my gear together to leave this morning to come here, we gather at 1045, there was one more item left on the ground, and Sandy said, you don't have the courage.
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She should have never said that to you. Now, Stan just walked in, so he didn't hear the story.
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He didn't. He doesn't want to hear it. Is this a
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TikTok video? Yeah. So there's another story that goes along with this.
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When we were newly married, Sandy was a young bride, she was only 20, and did lead kind of a sheltered life
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She was not really experienced to much the things of the world. Hey.
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And so she, is this gonna show up on Sunday?
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Okay, thank you. Sandy decided to buy me a necktie, and she saw this necktie that was quite a handsome necktie, so she bought it and wrapped it up and gave it to me.
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And when I opened it up, I kind of started to laugh. She didn't understand why.
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It had a little emblem on the bottom of the tie, as many ties do. And she thought it was really cute.
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She did not recognize that it was a Playboy bunny. So yes, dear,
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I did wear the bunny hat. Anyway. I have to a great start here. I know, and there's no way
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I can segue except just go for it. I worked on the title of this lesson that we have today at Galatians, and my first attempt at it was lawfulness versus godliness.
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Because the question is, if you've already come to know
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Christ, why would you want to slide back into being an advocate and a follower of the law?
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Lawfulness versus godliness. But as I considered it, there is absolutely nobody that's lawful.
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It's lawless. So if you're choosing not to be on the godly side of these things, you're choosing a path which can only result in you being identified as being lawless.
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And so that's why the title is Lawlessness. Versus, because the law is good and righteous, and we would want to be lawful, but we fall short.
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That's exactly the point. Jeff is going to be the featured speaker in about four weeks at a conference in Wisconsin.
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There's a church in Wisconsin, and it's called the TruthScript Conference.
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And Seth Brinkley, I think his name is, has put this conference together to get conservative pastors, elders, church people to hear the truth.
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And so here's the problem. When churches start to go woke, they're basically making the implication that works must be added to the gospel, for the gospel to be complete.
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Maybe we need to do social justice. We have to add to the gospel. Maybe it means to be placing women in positions of authority, because that's culturally more appropriate.
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So they have to add to the gospel. So as churches go woke, if you really look at what they're doing, they're adding works to gospel.
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And I want to put an observation. This is not inspired, this is just me. Isn't this just the most current form of circumcision?
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Where in the days of the Galatians, the Judaizers wanted for the new believers to have to adhere to the law, and so they added circumcision on top of salvation by faith.
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And so what's happening in the churches today is they're adding social justice, they're adding equity, they're adding these things on top of the gospel for it to be a true, full gospel.
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Tim, I'm going to ask you to open up Acts 15. You're going to read two verses for me. Because what's happening there is that the
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Judaizers are fighting against this new approach, which is the blood of Christ to Telestai, which is salvation by faith.
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And they're fighting against it. Tim, give me verse one. ♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
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You're in trouble. ♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪ But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
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There had to be something more because the gospel didn't get there.
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You must be, now give me verse five, please. But some believers who belong to the party of the
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Pharisees rose up and said, it is necessary to circumcise them to order them to keep the law of Moses.
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They had to keep the law of Moses. It was just a big package. So keeping part of, you must keep the law of Moses in order to be saved.
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So we're going to be looking today, paragraph one says Galatians 45 with all kinds of parenthesis marks.
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That's Galatians five. Give me the first six verses of Galatians five, please.
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For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
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Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.
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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.
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For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
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So working right from the top, we're talking in the beginning of this concept of freedom. For freedom,
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Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
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So the reality is we are not born free men.
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Okay, there has to be a transition that takes place. As man and woman are born, they adopt, they are basically filled with sin from their father
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Adam. We are born in sin. Ephesians 2, verses 1, 2, and 3 are those amazingly descriptive words about who we were dead in our trespasses and since following after the prince of the power of the air.
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This is who we are. John, I'm gonna ask if you would get 2 Timothy 2, and Janet, I'm gonna ask if you would get
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Ephesians 1, 7. I'll speak to the others in there. The picture of who we are, because of the sin, the sin nature that we have, is we don't even have the ability to respond to God.
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Unless he gives us the grace, we can't even say yes, because we're dead in our trespasses and sins.
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And so all that we know is this yoke that's on our shoulders, and we're pulling a weight, and this yoke is directing us in the direction we can go.
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It's a picture. We're nothing more than beasts of burden under the direction of Satan following after the path of sin.
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Whatever Satan desires that we should do, we know no better. We can actually not even do any better.
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John, give me 2 Timothy 2, 26, please. They may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
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We are captured. Now there is, in that verse, there is this hint that there is an escape from it, but until that escape happens, we are burdened, we are completely helpless.
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We are doing the will of Satan. 2 Peter 2 is going to put it this way.
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By whatever a man has overcome, that he is a slave to.
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Not everybody falls under the same sin. Personal observation.
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Before I became a believer, I was not drawn into sexual, extramarital sex.
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I wasn't drawn to it. I don't know why. God obviously protected me from that, and I was never tempted to go into illicit drugs.
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I was never tempted to go in that direction, and I don't know why, but some people are, and some people, and the sins that I was drawn to,
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I became a slave to that sin, and one of my sins was the sin of pride, and that was,
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I became a slave to that. To whatever error it is that overcomes you, that you become a slave to, and Satan is relentless in finding your particular weakness, and once he finds that weakness, he just works at it and then expands his field of power.
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On D -Day, the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy.
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Now, one of the interesting things about it is they used Patton as a decoy, because Hitler was sure that Patton was
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Eisenhower's man, and so they showed Patton making a different beachhead, so the
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Germans used that as their point of defense, only they came in this way instead of that way.
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My point is that Satan does not know all things. He is not omniscient, but he is relentless, and once he finds out your weakness, he won't forget.
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You become a slave, yeah. Say the first sentence you said, that which, that which.
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That to which overcomes you, that temptation that overcomes you, that desire that makes you go down the path and you surrender and you sin, that to which you are overcome by, that's where you become a slave, because once you.
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Okay, that which you are overcome by, not that which you have overcome. Correct, that which you are overcome by, that is where you become a slave, and it says here, for freedom,
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Christ has set us free. The reality is that as bad as Ephesians chapter two, verses one, two, and three are, it continues with the words, but God, that God chooses out of his love to apply the blood of Christ when his grace and we respond by faith.
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It says it this way in Ephesians one. Janet? Just verse seven? Seven and eight. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.
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Now, as we turn to Christ, and as we accept the blood of Christ, as we turn and we surrender to his lordship, many, many things happen.
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One of them is, as we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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So those things that had us under control, that bond is now broken, and we don't have, we can no longer say,
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I didn't have choice. We can no longer say, Satan made me do it, because he didn't.
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He only enticed you, because now, with the Holy Spirit, and you're cleansed and the bond is broken, you can say no.
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As it says in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, not only all temptation is overtaken you, calm unto man, but God is faithful, who not only be tempted beyond that which you are able, and with the temptation, he provides the way of escape.
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So the way of escape is not through your own strength, that's even through God, but that bond of yoke of slavery is now broken, and so here's the question from verse one.
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For freedom, Christ has set us free, therefore do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
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So here's the question, what's your choice? Are you gonna stand firm, or are you gonna go back?
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Are you going to stand firm through the promises of Christ, through the power of Christ, through the
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Holy Spirit working within you, through his grace, are you gonna stand firm, or are you going to be totally surrendering again to the lies of Satan and fall back?
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Christ has set us free, stand firm. Don't submit again to that yoke of slavery, you don't have to, you are now free.
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And so now he's gonna make a specific application, and he's gonna bring in the concept of circumcision.
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Give me verses two and three again, please. And by the way, Barb, you're gonna have Deuteronomy 10, there's a couple of verses there on my page, in Deuteronomy 10,
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Acts 15, Carol, and Candy, Galatians 2. Go ahead, please.
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Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.
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I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.
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Give me a definition of circumcision. You don't have to be too anatomical with it, but give me a definition of circumcision.
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Removal of the foreskin. I'm sorry? Removal of the foreskin. Removal of the foreskin in the male, yes.
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Is there another definition of circumcision, scripturally? Circumcision of the heart.
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Thank you. What does that mean, circumcision of the heart?
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Okay, and that's a very good way, removing, allowing, cutting away those things that are sin within our heart so that our heart becomes exposed to God, our heart becomes totally shown to Him.
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And useless. The stuff that is cut away is discarded and is useless.
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That's also very well said. Genesis 17 is basically the initiation of circumcision.
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It talks about circumcision would be a physical sign, a physical covenant, a physical sign of the covenant between God and men.
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So the Jewish males on the eighth day were to be circumcised. It was a sign, a physical sign that they lived under the covenant between them and Yahweh.
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But Deuteronomy 10, go ahead and read that for me, Barbara, if you would, verses 12 to 16.
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And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the
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Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your
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God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.
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To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth, and everything in it.
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Yet the Lord set His affection on your forefathers and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all nations, as it is today.
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Circumcise your hearts, as mentioned, and therefore, and do not be stiff -necked any longer.
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And then down to, you want down to 20? Fear the
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Lord your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name.
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This is our desire. Now, when we read in Galatians, there is no application to the circumcision of the heart as we read this passage in Galatians.
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The circumcision of the heart is a good thing, and it still is a thing that God would desire that we remove the sin, that we serve
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Him, and that we follow after Him. What's in question here is the physical circumcision.
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Today, well, okay, in the 20th century when I was born, I don't know if it still is today, but it is a fairly common practice for the male child, when they're born, to be circumcised.
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With the Gentiles. I'm sorry? The Gentiles. It's not as much as with the
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Jewish faith. The Jewish faith, that is. The Jewish faith, if they're doing the circumcision, perhaps they're doing it out of obedience to the law, but Gentiles today who are being circumcised, this is really a health issue, and that's why it's being done.
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So if a male today, Christian male today, was circumcised, this is not a problem.
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So that's not a question here. What's in question here is the bondage that physical circumcision would represent, and it's representing the fact that if you have a
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Gentile who comes to know the Lord, and they believe that circumcision validates the covenant relationship between them and God, they're basically going back under the bondage of the law, and that's what he's saying.
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And the Judaizers. That was the Judaizers, and that was their band. That was their marching band.
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Now, we're gonna need to talk about something because eventually we gotta talk about Timothy, but hold that as a tease.
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Acts 15. So why are you now challenging God with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear?
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We believe that we are all saved the same way by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.
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The Jews could not keep the whole law, and that not keeping the whole law, by definition, kept them short of the relationship required between them and God with the covenant.
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They couldn't even keep it, and so what was the rationale for them saying, that which we do, which we can't keep, now you must do as well, and the hypocrisy is what he brings out here.
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I testify to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.
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Verse two, Christ will no longer be advantage to you. The danger of circumcision in this regard, and it is a very narrow application, it's the description of a believer, a genuine believer, saved by grace through faith, it's the gift of God, not of works, okay,
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Ephesians two, now believing that I need to add this act of circumcision that was prescribed in the law, to really show that I meant it, that's the danger of it, is thinking that my works must be present to improve on my law.
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Galatians two. Yet we know that a person is not just, so we also have to believe in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.
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Absolutely. So what made, in the days of the early church, what was the lure of circumcision?
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And let me ask it this way slightly today. What is the lure of social gospel, of diversity and equity, and what is the lure to the churchgoer, to the genuine believer?
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Why would churches go down that path? At themselves.
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I'm sorry? I'm doing something, look at me. That's. Makes you feel good. So you just gave three great answers.
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One, I get to do something, and doing nothing other than, by faith, accepting
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Christ to become saved, I want to be in control of my destiny, which introduces pride, because I'm a little bit better than you are.
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I'm not gonna go down this path real far, except to say that we do not believe in a second filling of the
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Holy Spirit. We believe when you're saved, you receive the Holy Spirit, and that there is not a second step that makes you a better Christian.
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And the idea of pride comes in, and then the idea that I get to contribute,
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I get, and the word I becomes the operative pronoun in that statement.
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I think that's the lure of circumcision. Look, I, Paul, say to you, if you accept circumcision,
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Christ will be of no advantage to you, because now you are the one that is being the advantage.
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And Christ isn't gonna share that throne with anybody. Hmm. If it -
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Or anything. I'm sorry? Or anything. Or anything, correct. If you are on that throne of making it better,
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Christ is, you got the throne, buddy. Or if that activity is what makes you better.
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Now, let me be very clear. Romans 8, 38, and 39.
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For the believer, nothing can separate us from the love of God. That's a given. So the question is, what's happening to this person?
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They're not losing their salvation. That's against scripture. But if they fall back into a
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Judaizer's plan of circumcision, or they fall back into accepting diversity and social justice, what happens to that believer?
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First of all, I'm making the presumption we're talking a genuine believer. That's the question, yeah.
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But what happens to that genuine believer who buys into this lie? Yeah. They're apostated.
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And what happens to them? Well, for example, the reason
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I, that's why I say, in some ways, we all apostate on any number of times in our life in different ways.
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And so, to go down a route of believing something like we look at what's going on, you talk about parenthood, and why churches do that.
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That's apostasy. Even, it could be a Christian, but they're giving into this world system to not be thrown out of the synagogues.
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It's the same thing, to be involved culturally, to be able to have the right to eat, to travel freely, to do these things.
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You have to make decisions. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why when we reach a point where there's this, whatever mark of the beast, or some sort of thing, you will declare one way or the other.
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You will have no choice but to declare, because either you will eat and have right to engage, kind of like what happened in one of the churches in Revelation, where the guilds, the union guilds, the labor guilds that they had,
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Christians weren't even allowed to enter into them unless they gave to, was it diatomic, or was it church?
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So let's try this out for size. He used a... I'm sorry, I don't mean to be... No, no, no, this is good.
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He used a 37 -cent word. I grade the size of the theological word by dollars and cents.
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He gave a 37 -cent word, apostasy, and that's not a word that is easily grasped and understood.
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So here's my question, and I'm starting out with the foundational premise, and I think that this is genuine, to this book of Galatians.
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It's not the Hebrews' woes, but here, if you fall away, you can never return again.
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We're talking to the pretender, not the believer. But here, I think we're talking to believers who have been lured into sliding back, into keeping the law and everything else.
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The question is, what happens to them? Let's read verse four. Please give me four. You are severed from Christ.
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You who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. I don't believe
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Scripture ever contradicts itself. Our understanding needs to be amplified and clarified by the
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Holy Spirit, but Scripture never contradicts itself. And so what
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Romans 8... But why don't you just read, falling from grace, verse four. Verse four,
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Galatians five. That's okay, read Galatians. You are severed from Christ.
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You who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. The believer who has fallen into the trap of verses two and three, of accepting circumcision and everything that that means, the next logical conclusion that Paul says is you've been severed from Christ.
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Then you've fallen away from grace. On the surface, taking this verse and the danger of taking a verse out of Scripture and building a theology out of that is that you don't know how that is applied in the context of the passage of the book and of the entirety of Scripture.
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Ephesians one, did I give that to anybody? Ephesians one, 11 to 14, please. By the way, as she reads this, follow the beautiful trail that this passage paints.
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And it's an unbreakable trail. Go ahead. 11 to 14. In Him, according to the purpose of Him who accomplished
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His will, we who first spoke in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of His Lord.
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In Him, you also who have heard the word for salvation and have believed in Him, we're sealed with the promise of the
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Holy Spirit, which is a guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His Lord.
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Here's the words that just follow down. We have an inheritance. It was predestined. And at the point that where we listen and we believe, we become sealed.
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And by the way, the difference between this seal and the seal that the
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Romans placed on the boulder in front of the cave, this seal cannot be broken.
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There is no power greater than God. This seal cannot be broken. The Romans put a seal on that boulder in front of the cave, but God's power was greater than the
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Romans. That seal was broken. And it says we are sealed, we are redeemed, and we are
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God's possession. And I don't think anybody can take anything out of God's hand.
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It's His possession. And those who have gone through this trail, all right, we have an inheritance that's been predestined.
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We've listened, we've believed, we're sealed, we're redeemed, and we're His possession. This is eternal.
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This is eternal. Matthew 19. John, on that subject of seal.
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Yeah. When I read it in NAS, it says a pledge. Yes. It's not like a wax seal.
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Correct. A pledge is like a down payment on a piece of property. Correct. It's a guaranteed advantage.
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So it's a different kind of seal than the seal you put on a stone to keep it from being moved.
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It's a seal that is a promise. It's a promise. It's also, I like to use an analogy of a passport.
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Yes. So I have a passport. I'm just getting it renewed. And it's got this picture of me on it.
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And - Does it have rabbit ears or not? No rabbit ears, no rabbit ears. But it has my birth date.
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It has the issuing date. It has an expiration date. And it says I'm a citizen of the
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United States. But I have a second passport which has been sealed by God.
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And that one has a picture of who I really am. And then it has my rebirth date with no expiration date.
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And it says I'm a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. That's a seal. That's a seal, yeah.
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Yeah, I appreciate that. Explain that in Ephesians because those are the scriptures that will be often taken out of context.
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Like Hebrews 6, 6 is often taken out of context that if a person falls away, there's no way to renew them.
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Well, I can say that in any of our lives, there's periods of time where we look back.
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You can't get back that time. So if you're doing those times, you fall away, there's, you can't get rewards.
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Like there's no rewards if you're living for yourself. You know what I'm saying? So like, when you fall away, you're losing the fellowship with Christ.
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And thus - That's it. Your life is, you're not, there's no meaning. That's it.
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And when we read in this passage in Galatians that you are severed from Christ, this seal has never been broken.
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And this promise and this inheritance, factory's possession has not changed. But we have lost fellowship with him.
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That's what's, that's what's the danger of sliding back into circumcision, which by the way, if you read
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Matthew 19, this is the rich young ruler. It says, what do I do to inherit the kingdom of God?
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Says, keep all the law. He says, I've kept them all since my youth. And he says, well, well, you've done. Now go sell everything you have and give it to the poor.
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And he left sad because he had covet. What did the disciples say afterwards?
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Who can be saved then? If he walked away, what hope is there for us?
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And he says, without, without God, this is not possible. But here's the thing. Here's the thing
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I want to emphasize. One thing that you think you can keep to become better for God.
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Well, did you keep them all? No, you didn't.
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And nobody here keeps the whole law. And that's, that's the point. To drive us back to the cross where Christ said to tell us to die.
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Romans 8, 38, 39, nothing can separate us. Galatians 3, did
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I give that to somebody? Okay. Sue, if you would give me Galatians 3, 23, please.
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If, hang on, before you do it. What's the name of that? What's the name of that correspondent that's in prison in Russia right now?
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Snowden? No. No, not Snowden. Alexei Navalny. Oh, we don't even know his name.
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This poor guy, he's innocent. He's been in prison for how long? Five years. Yeah, he's been in prison.
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While he's in prison, he has basically, for Santa Nagrada, he separated our herds.
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Give me Galatians 3, 23. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by those of the faith which would afterwards be revealed.
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We were kept under guard. Other versions say we were imprisoned. We're out of experiencing
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God, and what he wants you not to do here is don't be severed from Christ.
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You can't be justified. You who would be justified from the law, you're falling away from grace.
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That which God wants to lavish upon you, you're choosing to be better than God by keeping and adding to the gospel of grace, so you're not experiencing it.
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You're getting in the way. Give me verse five, if you would. For through the
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Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
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Through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait. Here are some of the things that I think God has given to us.
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What are some of the gifts that God gives to a believer? I've got many of them listed here, but what gifts does
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God give to the believer? He gives us a future and a hope.
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Jeremiah 29, 11, I know the plans that I have for you. Philippians 3, 20, our citizenship is in heaven.
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If I go, I go to prepare a place for you that when I go, there you may be with me also.
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We've got room up there. Would it be to conform us into his image? That's another, is we get conformed into his image.
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I don't have it down here, but that would go on the fact of perhaps the
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Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit's ministry to us is to conform us, to convict us, to teach us, to instruct us, and all of this stuff, the intent of all of this stuff is this process that we call sanctification.
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You first come to him and you're justified. You're immediately written in the book of life, but we still got a lot of cleansing to do, and that's the act of sanctification, and that's making us look more and more like him every day.
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But I'm thinking the first thing he gives us is faith. That's the first thing he gives us, that he gives us, we have to stand,
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Romans 12, three, please. You got a question?
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Please. We're talking about, did we ever really, true, have the
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Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts from that day to day one, or are we working by works, thinking that we do all these works by the law, that we're gonna get to heaven, or is it because we never really believe what we think by our own works?
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We're gonna work away to heaven. So this gets down to the diagnostic question that we love to use. Somebody desires membership.
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The big diagnostic question is what? You're at the gates. Would God let you in?
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Why? Yeah, why should I be let in? That's the big question. Why should I let you into my heaven?
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And if any part of that answer talks about what you have done for him, then you're not really a safe person.
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What I'm hearing here is all these things were guaranteed, that's only if you put your faith in Jesus Christ.
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Yes, yeah, and Stan, can I chime in for just like maybe two minutes? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, I take a different view of what's happening here in these passages, but that's okay that we can differ on interpreting scripture, because we're not infallible, but the word of God is infallible.
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So I could be wrong, but we can have, you know, the Bible knowledge commentary is, did you read the VKC? Has one view here.
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I'm holding more of kind of like the master seminary view. I think what's happening here is that he is warning them, you will go to hell.
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You will be severed from Christ. You will, it's a strong warning. You have fallen from grace.
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And here's how it's not inconsistent with eternal security. That the means that God will use to keep those who are genuinely saved is this very warning.
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So when the genuine believer hears this warning, he will be kept by the power of God and by this strong word.
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So no one who's genuinely saved will actually, in fact, go to hell. But he is warning in verse four, if you go to this other gospel, if you start relying on law, then you're severed from Christ.
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You are cut off from him and you're going to hell. So I think he is, and this gets to what
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Stan was saying, which is, I think, an important point. There are many people that think they're saved by grace when in fact, they're still trusting in law and in their own goodness and they're false converts.
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So the Hebrews six passage would run parallel with this and Hebrews 10, that there are many that look like Christians that are not.
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So in my view, the guy in verse four is severed from Christ and going to hell. Is that it?
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Yeah, it's okay if we differ on that. Yeah, yeah. Galatians, where are we, 2, 17.
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If while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin?
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Absolutely not. Right. I stumbled over that a little bit just because.
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What was the address on that? Galatians 2, 17. I've stumbled over that a couple of times and I'm still not sure what he's trying to say there.
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But I think it fits in with the fact that if anything, good works are a reflection of Christ in our lives, not good works are to put us into.
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And that's James. Yes. That's exactly James. Show me your faith, I'll show you my faith by my works.
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Faith without works is dead. Right. Absolutely. Consider Abraham. He believed in God and it was counted on him for righteousness.
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Yep. There wasn't a work there. Correct. I fall between you, I think this is a conviction for those who have fallen to this sin and if the
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Holy Spirit is genuinely in them, I think they will be guided to an understanding of that and discard it.
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So it is important, that's gonna be where are they at this absolute instant in time, maybe they're not where they should be.
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But ultimately, they'll get this sorted out and reject what was not real.
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Can a born -again Christian sin? Oh, absolutely, yes. Yes, yes. And that's what
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Christ is all about. So to go towards your side of the debate is the doctrine of mutual assured annihilation.
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So the two superpowers both had nuclear weapons but they knew if the nuclear weapons were used, annihilation would occur and so neither of them used it.
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And to have the communication of going down this path would result in going to hell.
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Yeah, and to take a step farther, tying in with what Bob said there, it's not that they would sin, it's not that they would fall into anger or lust or pride, it's that they would have a different gospel, a gospel of law and circumcision.
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So this is a different, it ties back with Galatians 1, 6 -9, the whole theme of the book, if you
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Judaize the gospel, consider yourself cut off. Or Mormonized. Yeah, Mormonizing would do the same thing.
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And I think Roman Catholic sacraments can do that to the gospel as well. Pastor Chapman, you gave two scriptures,
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Hebrews 6, what was that? Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 both have the same warning. If you fall away, then those are the woes that you cannot be restored.
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So any attempt to be justified by the law is to reject salvation by grace.
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That faith was never genuine, again. If they persist in that, but God will use his word to correct course for those who are being tempted by this road, by the
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Judaizers. Tempted, right. Yeah, tempted, right. But if they become Judaizers, they go that route, that they will apostatize, and apostasy actually does have that falling away idea, but it shows that they were never of us.
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They go out from us because they were never of us. So, yeah. Yeah, we can't be tempted.
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Yes. And that's the brother's way to bring us back. Yeah. I won't argue, but my point is that I understand that, but I think, too, that apostasy's a bigger thing in that apostasy leads to lostness of future generations.
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So when we look at the church, you say, well, what happened to our children? What's happening in our world?
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In some ways, there's a responsibility. My thing is that in the deepest, darkest periods of my life, you reach a place and you say, where else am
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I going to turn? Where am I going to go? I don't know if anybody's ever been there, but in the darkest time, where I look and say, what am
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I going to do? Where am I? Look where I'm at, like the prodigal son, and you have to ask yourself, where else am
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I going to go? You can't go back to my father. Yes. And at the bottom, you either keep digging or you look up.
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Well, and you can't get back that. For example, we talk about the culture and churches.
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Churches that have apostate, maybe, like a guy like Al Mohler has made some shifts, and I get it and all this stuff, but I don't look at it macro, micro.
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I look at it from the macro, apostasy, in that you can't get that back. Once the church apostates, you've lost all those people.
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A lot of times, they'll remove the lamp stand. Don't you want to finish up the last one? I'm going to try to bring everything together from this, and then close it down.
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The use of words can be very difficult. The word apostasy can mean different things to different people.
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At its extreme, we are aware of a significant change in church leader who, recently, within the last year, has described the ministry under this particular church leader as being complementarian.
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And we would say, great, because complementarian means, at its basic, that women have a different role than men.
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And one of the issues is that women should not be pastors and spiritual leaders. We're both equal in the eyes of God, but we have different roles.
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And in its basics, that's what complementarian is. And this particular church leader says we are absolutely complementarian.
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Unfortunately, this person's definition of complementarianism says this would be egalitarian.
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That means women can be pastors. And anything outside of egalitarian means we're complementarian, as opposed to saying, this is the definition of complementarian in the
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Bible, and everything outside of it means you're egalitarian. They, this person would put the spectrum that way.
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Apostasy is a very difficult term to understand, and that's, in some people's mind, it means that I have sinned, and I am not walking with God.
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And believers do that. Anyone says he has not sinned deceives himself, okay?
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But anyone who confesses his sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us all sins and cleanses. Okay, if a person is a believer, that doesn't mean there can never be a sin, okay?
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Is that apostasy? It depends on your definition of apostasy. Jeff, you would say that's not apostasy.
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Well, in Hebrews 6, the word, if he falls away, is apostia. I got what you're saying, I got what you're saying.
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But I guarantee you that I do fall away. Not to the extent of not being a believer.
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That's what we do. Where it's, the word apostia, as far as I know, is always used of falling away unto damnation, like falling away from Christ.
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Okay. So the Hebrews 6 use of it is falling away from. So let's not word the use of apostasia, because that's not.
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That would be sin. Hang on a second. That's not in Galatians. Right. That's not what's here.
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You introduced it, which I got no problem with, and so now the discussion became apostasia as to what's in here.
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This is perhaps where we differ. I see this as a warning against falling back into a
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Judaizer's teaching. And that when you fall into an acceptance of sin, you're not walking in clearness with God.
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That's the way I see it. And you're seeing it as a descriptor between the believer and the non -believer, the believer versus the apostate.
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And either one of them can be applied here, to be truthful. Either one of them can be applied. Both and, because in one case, it's a warning to those who would go down this path, you're going to hell.
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And that's the only way you can go to hell is if you were never on the narrow path in the first place.
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Okay, that's good. On the other, you're on a narrow path that you've slipped up. While you've slipped up, you've lost your relationship with God.
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You've lost that fellowship with God, but you can return to God. And I think both and, are appropriate here.
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And I think it's good for us to model. Yeah, no, I think it's good for us to model publicly that we can read something different and disagree, and still love one another as brothers and respect one another as teachers.
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That'd be better. Because otherwise, each one of us would be little islands with our Bibles, and you know, because we're not going to agree 100 % on everything.
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For me, the summary verse is what's appropriate here. And that's verse six, please. Verse six.
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Galatians 5, 6. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
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And I think that's the summary here is, don't make this big deal about circumcision or uncircumcision, because I've been circumcised.
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Is that too personal? I don't think that makes me in danger in this passage.
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By the way, Paul had Timothy circumcised. So that he would have the ability to better minister to the
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Jews. So circumcision, uncircumcision isn't the issue. The issue is faith.
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And the issue is, where is your heart? I think the bottom line here is my comment here.
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Faith is the resource that works in a believer. The love of God is its power.
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And if you step outside of this and try to add to the gospel, you're making a sham of the love of God.
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You're adding to it. Romans 12 .2, you're going to be preaching on this in a few weeks in Wisconsin.
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Present your body as a living sacrifice. These are right out of the passage. Present your body as a living sacrifice.
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Focus on spiritual worship. Don't be conformed to this world.
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Live showing that you accept the will of God. And I think that fully comports with both of our interpretations of this passage.
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Amen. Do you want to close in prayer? Absolutely. So Father, I want to thank you for my dear brother John, who
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I love and I'm just so thankful for him. Even when he wears bunny ears on his head, Lord. I thank you for him.
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And I thank you for this church and the love that we have. Lord, help us to always have faith working through love.
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We love you and we praise you and we thank you for the indescribable gift. Help us never to fall away from that, apostatize, or even to drift slightly in the direction of sin.
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Keep us, Lord. We look to you and we love you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. This, by the way,