Freedom In Christ | Galatians 5:1-12

Galatians 5, if you've got one of these Bibles it's on page 945.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Mark my words.

I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ.

You have fallen away from grace.

For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.

The only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love.

If you are running a good race, who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?

That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.

A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.

I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view.

The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty.

Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

In that case the offence of the cross has been abolished.

As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.

Good morning everyone.

If we have not met before, my name is Michael, I am one of the pastors here and it is an absolute delight to have you with us.

Please, after the service, do not feel like you need to run off.

We have tea, coffee, a bit of morning tea and we would love to get to know you and talk to you a bit.

If you have any questions from today's sermon or anything about the Christian faith,

then please feel free to ask us. We would be delighted to answer any questions that you might have.

We are going to come to an interesting part of our passage of our book this morning in our series.

So let us come before the author and ask for his help this morning.

Would you please pray with me?

Father God, it is indeed a wonderful thing that you have so graciously and mercifully brought us here this morning.

Together around your word.

To sing together, to pray together and to rejoice in the victory of the gospel.

This morning we asked that as we peer into the words of eternal life, life giving words, words that you have given to your church.

We asked that you would work through your Holy Spirit to show us Christ.

That we might leave this place focused on the gospel and not on ourselves.

We ask for this in his name. Amen.

I came across an interesting word this week, recidivism.

Now, if you haven't heard that word before, recidivism is when a prisoner who has been released from incarceration

reoffends so that they end up back in jail.

Prisonfellowship.org shows statistically that one third of released prisoners will reoffend in the first year.

Within three years, that number jumps to 50% and then 75% over five years.

Psychologists saw McLeod states, even though it's easy to define recidivism, it's really not easy to say,

figuring out its root cause is a much, much deeper problem.

This is one of the most difficult questions to answer, he states.

For those who have been released from prison are reoffending and thus repopulating the system from which they've been set free.

I mentioned that to you this morning because in a way, that's what Paul is dealing with here in the book of Galatians.

He's dealing with a whole bunch of people that were on a slippery slope and in danger of going back to what they had been released from.

Not to prison, of course, but to a mindset of religious slavery, but this time under the guise of the Jewish law.

You see, as we've seen in this series, the Gospel came to Galatia and these people, they were set free from paganism.

And for a while they were doing great, walking in the truth of the Gospel.

But as we've also seen, things didn't stay that way for very long.

No, they'd been infiltrated by a group of teachers that said that the Mosaic law was required to be kept to really have Christ be of any benefit to them.

In other words, they were being sold a Christ plus something more doctrine in that they had to practice the law with all of its requirements to really be saved.

So over the weeks we've seen Paul, our apostle, defend the Gospel of grace.

And he's shown that even though the law is good, it was only ever given to function like a guardian to lead people to Christ.

But now that Christ has come, the law has done its job and thus there's no reason for Jew or Gentile to go back to a system that had become obsolete.

Now this was no trivial matter as we've seen.

Our apostle, he's played with these people saying you can't have it both ways.

You can't have a foot in both camps.

You're either of the mindset of the flesh and living as a slave still under the curse of the law or you've been set free by Christ and His work.

You can't have it both ways.

And Paul sums that argument up for us here in verse one of the chapter that we're looking at this morning.

He says it's for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm then and don't let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

It's for freedom that we've been set free.

That is what the Christian has.

So don't fall into recidivism.

That's what our passage is about today.

It's about knowing what God has done for us so that we might stand firm in the gospel and not go back into a mindset of a works-based righteousness mindset.

In verses two through to four, Paul will show us that we have to be careful of this.

We really do, but shows us that there is something that the Christian has that makes all the difference in the world.

And then in verses seven through to twelve, he'll warn us to be on guard against teachers that will be out to get us dragged back into slavery.

But it will also show us how to spot them.

So if you have your Bibles with you this morning, it would be really helpful as we're going to be in our text quite a bit.

So read with me verses two through to four.

Paul says, Mark my words.

I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

Again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he's obligated to obey the whole law.

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ.

You've fallen away from grace.

Now, straight off the bat, you might notice that our apostle, he repeats himself here.

And he does that because like any parent who repeatedly tells their child before they cross the road,

look both ways, look both ways.

That's what Paul's doing here.

He sees the danger because look what's at stake.

He says if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

I haven't done it already, but the Galatians were like little children that were in serious danger

of getting taken out by that car as they crossed the street.

And it all had to do with circumcision.

Now, to really understand what's going on here, we need to see something in context.

You see, circumcision was a sign that was given to the Jewish people to show the world

that they were in covenant with the living God.

It was incredibly important in the Old Testament.

It was first given to Abraham and then re-emphasized in the covenant at Sinai.

Every Jewish boy had to get the sign, and if they didn't, they would be cut off from their people.

Now, we might say that's a bit drastic nowadays, but what sits behind this was the reality that

anyone who had this sign, well, they were shown to be in relationship by covenant with the living God.

It was like a signature in the skin, if you will.

And those who had this signature had to follow the terms and conditions perfectly.

I'm sure most of you have had to sign a contract before,

and we do that because our signature, it locks us into the terms and conditions of that contract

so that you get all the benefits of that thing that you're signing up to.

Well, very much in the same way, to be circumcised was to sign on the dotted line

that you were submitting to the Sinai covenant.

And to sign on the dotted line meant that you were signing up to all the terms and conditions that went along with that.

And that's why our apostle is so serious in his warnings here,

because he's saying if you get circumcised, you're signing up to the whole law.

Not just the moral things, mind you, but the ceremonial things like the special festivals,

dietary requirements, the temple sacrifices,

and if you get circumcised, you need to follow those things perfectly,

otherwise you'll be in violation of all the terms and conditions.

And that was to be under the curse of God.

Now, as we've seen in this book, Paul has showed us that not only has Jesus followed the law perfectly

and thus received all the benefits and blessings of the covenant on behalf of his people,

but he took the full penalty of all their contract breaking and lawlessness,

the curse for his people upon himself at the cross.

And that perfect work is given to anyone from anywhere who has done anything who calls upon the name of the Lord.

And when they do that, well, they're set free from the Sinai covenant,

because Jesus has kept it perfectly for them.

So Paul's warning here is if you've heard the Gospel and you want to go back and sign up to a system

that was only ever given to point out sin and to point to Jesus,

then that is absolutely ludicrous.

And it shows something drastically wrong with your understanding of the Gospel.

Haley, my wife and I, we've got to the point in our parenting where we're discussing what chores the kids need to do.

And we're thinking about all the different ways that parents can go about it,

like how to reward our little ones for helping out kind of thing.

All that to say at no point in our discussions on the matter,

have we ever said if they do the dishes, if they clean their rooms,

if they feed the pets then and only then will they gain and earn their status in the family.

And I mention that because I think that's how some of the people in the Galatian churches were treating the Gospel of grace.

They'd heard the good news, they'd somewhat accepted some of the claims,

but were wanting to look for more ways to be accepted by God because they hadn't fully grasped what Christ had actually achieved for His people.

That Jesus alone makes people, His people, a permanent member of God's household,

permanent members of the kingdom of heaven.

That's why they were really wanting to go and get circumcised and adopt the law.

It was because they thought if I just do these certain works, then I'll really now earn my place in God's family.

And though it may have seemed attractive to them, Paul, our apostle, couldn't be any more sobering in his warning here.

Saying if you go and you sign on the dotted line, you're placing yourself under terms and conditions

that will only ever cut you off from blessing and put you under the curse.

And all that is being held out to you, well Christ will be of no value to you at all.

You'll be alienated from Him and you'll fall from grace.

Before we move on and unpack the rest of our passage, I want to acknowledge that these words have really troubled many sensitive Christians over the years.

And I think unnecessarily.

You see, people will often read these words and worry that Paul is actually contradicting himself,

particularly in places where he affirms in holy scripture the eternal security of the believer.

So what do we do with what Paul is saying here?

Can true believers fully and finally fall away from Christ?

Well, I think the question is answered by the attitude of some people that Paul was addressing there in Galatia.

They were in the visible church, but they hadn't trusted Christ with all that they were.

That's why they desired to sign up to a system of works to make them more acceptable to God.

And they wanted to do that because they didn't trust that Christ had done everything necessary to make us right with God.

That's why they desired to add to it.

But I don't want to skip over this too quickly this morning, because I want you to see what Paul is doing here.

You see, he's essentially holding out a decision that every single one of us has to make.

And that decision is, do you trust what Christ has done for you?

Do you believe that he has done everything necessary to make you right with the holy God of the universe or not?

To put it simply, he's asking everyone in the visible church to reflect on where we're at.

He's asking, do you think you can add to Christ without subtracting him?

And our answer will highlight something to us.

Christ is either your everything or he's not.

And now we answer that makes all the difference in the world.

And so in saying that church, we see that circumcision wasn't really the problem.

We'll see more about that in just a moment.

It was actually the mindset that sat behind it all.

There were people in the church that wanted to go and sign up to a system of workspace righteousness

because they had a fundamental faithlessness in the message of the gospel from the get-go.

That is the real problem here.

There were people still wanting to earn their place in the kingdom of heaven by their own works

as they weren't trusting in the work of Christ alone.

Christ alone.

A couple of years ago, a friend and I, we were walking in Frio and we saw this guy preaching on the side of the street.

It was great.

And so we wanted to go and encourage him.

And the conversation was really pleasing at first.

That was until if he asked if we spoke in tongues

to which then he proceeded in telling my friends that they weren't really saved

because trusting in Christ alone wasn't enough.

No, they needed this particular work to really be accepted and to know that they were accepted by Christ.

And I use that example because going out and getting circumcised and signing up to the Mosaic covenant

doesn't seem to be the biggest problem in the church in 21st century Western Australia.

The warning is the same.

A something more than Christ alone doctrine must be seen for what it is and avoided.

So we must all take heed.

You might go to church, you may have gone for many years, but when you take your eyes off Jesus alone

and look to something other than his sacrifice so that you can hold it up to God and say,

see, I deserve to be in heaven.

I've earned this.

I've earned this by doing fill in the blanks.

Well, that's the danger that Paul is pointing out for us here this morning.

That's the mindset that is highlighting that leads to the prison system all over again.

Will we be tempted to do this?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Each and every single one of us will be tempted to look to something more than or other than Christ alone

for the rest of our Christian walk.

That's why God has given us the book of Galatians.

But there is a fundamental reason why the true believer won't ultimately and finally fall away from Christ.

And Paul explains that fundamental reason to us in verses five through to six,

saying, for through the spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

I want you to notice, church, a contrast that's happening in just these first few verses.

There's a contrast between the real believers of five through to six that have come to rest on the gospel

and those in verses two through to four who hadn't and were in real danger of rejecting Christ.

And what's the difference?

Well, Paul says it has to do with the work of the Holy Spirit,

the Holy Spirit who produces faith and hope in the life of his people.

Notice that language there in verse five.

Paul says it's through the spirit that we eagerly await.

Therefore, Paul is the fundamental difference between a life of legalism and one of peace.

The fundamental difference between standing firm eagerly awaiting for the promise that has been held out to us

rather than slipping back into the mosaic mindset.

It's through the spirit that believers eagerly await for the things promised by God.

And they do that because of faith.

We see that there in verse five.

Now, Paul will explain elsewhere to the Ephesians that faith is actually a gift from God.

And here he says it's because of this faith that believers won't ultimately be drawn back into a life of trying to secure their own righteousness before God

because they trust that Jesus has done it all.

And so you might say that the spirit is the agent and faith is the instrument.

And that's because of God's work in the believer they will live a life of hope.

Hope not in their own works, but looking to Christ's perfect work

and looking forward to the fullness of his righteousness being realized in their lives.

And that ultimately will work its way out in the life of those in Christ.

We see that language there in verse six.

For those in Christ, we won't be drawn to look to anything in the flesh,

but live our faith out on this side of eternity in a way that will be manifested in love.

And we'll have a look at what that really means next week.

So again, we see a contrast between real believers in verses five through to six

and those in verses two through to four that we're wanting to sign up to a works-based righteousness.

True believers, we have the spirit.

They've come to trust on Christ by faith and lived their lives out in the hope and the obedience of the gospel.

All that to say the fundamental difference of those in Christ to those who aren't

is the continual looking to and relying on Jesus Christ as their only hope in life and death.

Brothers and sisters, we will struggle and strive with the flesh.

All of us, we will struggle with being tempted to look to something other than Jesus for assurance from time to time.

But it's as we see here because of the supernatural work of the spirit in the lives of God's children,

we will continue to live in hope and not ultimately fall away.

It's because of the Holy Spirit of God and all that He has done in us

that we now live by faith in what Jesus has done for us.

That's why the true children of God won't ultimately fall away into a system where they will want to work for heaven once again.

No, we'll stand firm with our eyes raised to Christ because of the work of God Almighty on our part.

We know and trust that Christ has done everything that needs to make us right with Him for all eternity.

Our work's important, absolutely.

And the rest of this letter, as I said, will show us that.

But those works are a manifestation of the hope that we have, not the hope that we have in and of themselves.

Again, there's a world of difference between those who were tempted by legalism

and those who desire it enough that they will do anything to get back into that system again.

And the work of the spirit, the gift of faith and the hope we have is that difference.

So that's first.

We have to be careful of falling back into a works-based mindset.

But the Holy Spirit of God, we're not alone in this.

The Spirit of God is with us in the battle.

Second, we have to be on guard against those who will want to drag us away from the gospel and back into slavery.

And Paul shows us how to spot them.

If you have your Bibles, look with me at verses 7 through to 12.

Paul says, you were running a good race.

Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?

That kind of persuasion doesn't come from the one who calls you.

A little yeast works its way through the whole batch of dough.

I'm confident in the Lord that you'll take no other view.

The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that might be, will have to pay the penalty.

Brothers and sisters, if I'm still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

In that case, the offence of the cross has been abolished.

As for those agitators, I wish that they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.

It's funny, just this week I was looking at some footage online of a runner approaching another runner in a race

and punching him in the back of the head during the whole thing.

This happened at the Tiger International Festival in Florida.

And the punched runner, he fell straight to the ground and he was taken out of the race completely.

But incredibly, the competition continued as other runners were kind of dodging and running over him,

totally ignoring the incident, but that's not what our apostle is doing here.

These people, they'd been set free, they were running a good race, but then these false teachers,

they were in the track, so to speak, and they were a real threat to these people,

to the point that some could be taken out of the race completely.

And Paul couldn't ignore it because this wasn't from God.

A Christ plus something more doctrine doesn't come from the one who calls us.

And I saw that with my friend and that guy going back to that thing in Frio that happened.

For a moment, admittedly, they thought to themselves, do I need to do something more?

Do I need to go and speak in tongues before God will actually and fully finally accept me?

Well, imagine if they didn't know the gospel, imagine if they didn't trust Christ implicitly.

Imagine if they believed that person's twisting of the gospel, of getting them to go and doing something other,

they're looking to Christ alone, the results would have been devastating.

And that's why God's warning against those false teachers is so drastically sobering.

Paul uses, you may have noticed, incredibly graphic language in our passage this morning.

We won't go into all the ins and outs of it for the sake of time,

but he's essentially saying that he wishes these false teachers would be so maimed

that they wouldn't be able to stand with the people of God in his presence.

That's an Old Testament illusion.

That's how serious he takes false teachers and those who twist the gospel.

And the church has to do the same.

So with that in mind, we need to be careful, dear ones, of who we listen to,

which books we read, with whose ministries we subscribe to.

Because when it comes to the gospel, there isn't just a bit of fun or interesting,

it can be dangerous to the Christian and a little bit of it can spread right through the church.

We see that in our text this morning in verse 9.

I know of whole ministries that have been sidetracked because of the health and wealth movement

that's come out of America.

And they were sidetracked because people were obsessed with teachers on YouTube.

Never has false teaching had so much reach into the church, into the life of the Christian

than it does at this very moment with the rise of the Internet.

We have to be on guard.

We must be on guard with what we let into our heads and hearts.

But Paul helps us to spot the difference, to help us with what's good and what is error.

And he points to the defining factor, the dividing line, if you will, there in verse 11.

And it all has to do with the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And Paul points to the cross because Christ and Him crucified is the sole grounds of our hope and salvation before God Almighty.

The cross church is the difference between freedom and slavery between the gospel and account of it.

The cross says Paul, the preaching of the cross is the defining factor because it puts Christ at the center of the gospel.

Christ is all.

Christ alone.

Our only hope in life and death.

And that is offensive.

That is offensive to those who would have you adopt a different gospel,

who would put you on a different course of Jesus plus, Jesus plus.

So that said, whatever you hear, whatever you read, whatever you tune into,

don't trust a ministry that leaves out calling people to the cross,

that leaves out putting your trust, your hope in Christ alone.

Paul has called us, church, to stand firm in the knowledge of what Jesus Christ has achieved for us

and to not go back and get tangled up with a works-based mindset.

And we can do that. This is our hope because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

God set us free, brothers and sisters. Our chains are gone.

We are free.

All we have to look forward to is a realization in full of the righteousness which is ours.

That's our hope and that's our hope because we have received this by faith.

Maybe you'll hear this morning you've never heard of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Never heard that you need to be saved or set free.

Well friend, you are here by no mistake this morning.

God calls you to trust in His Son who has done everything on your behalf to make you completely right with your Creator forever.

He lived a perfect life. He took sin's curse upon the cross and He offers freely His righteousness to anyone who would call upon His name.

You don't need to go clean yourself up first. You don't need to go and make things right first.

No, what you need to do is to call upon Him and trust that He has done it all.

That He has paid the price for your law-breaking.

If you want to speak a little bit more about whatever that means, please come and find me after the service.

I would love to speak to you.

Maybe you'll hear this morning and you truly believe the Gospel.

At one point you were living in wonderful freedom but then something or someone came along and distracted you.

Maybe someone came along and told you that you needed to do more in order for God to actually accept you.

Maybe you were told that you had to go to church a certain number of times, that you had to pray in a certain way.

Maybe you were told that you had to join a particular group or that you had to get baptized or visit a certain part of the world before you would really be acceptable to God.

I don't know what you've been told but what I do know is that if you realize where you have held onto or are holding onto something other than Christ,

then there is forgiveness at the cross.

There is forgiveness for anyone who sees their sin and calls upon the name of the Lord.

Would you pray with me?

Father God, we thank you for the Gospel.

We thank you that it is indeed amazing news, that you have set us free, that you have filled us full of the Holy Spirit,

and that you are the one who causes us to stand firm.

Father God, we are so thankful for Jesus.

There's no words to express how thankful we are for Him.

We are the one who deliberately, with foresight, who planned to rescue His people.

From love and you met the wrath that we would do on the cross.

We ask Father that we would be a people that would live in the light of the Gospel.

Lord, you would cause us daily to not look to ourselves, to not look to our pasts, but to look to you and know that we have been forgiven.

Lord, would you cause us to love the Gospel so much that it would bubble out so that we would share it with others?

And we ask this for the sake of Christ and your glory on this earth.

Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.