Running Well...Until You Weren't (Galatians 5:7-12)

Here at Sovereign Grace Bible Church, we believe that God's word was written the way it was written for a reason.

And it'd be very easy for me to steer the ship and to give you my favorite hobby horse.

And to tell you this week we're going to focus on a series on being a man.

And the next month to tell you we're focusing on prayer.

And the next month to focus on the family unit.

And so on and so forth.

The problem is that my joke for a long time was that creates what I like to call Swiss cheese theology, where you have giant holes in your understanding of God's word and have no idea that those holes even exist.

One of the antidotes to that is to treat God's word with the reverence it deserves.

God wrote a book, and thus it should be read like a book.

Within that book, God wrote letters, and they should be read through and explained and understood as letters.

Today is one of the ultimate tests of how much do I believe in that philosophy.

Because I am here to tell you, I have never heard a sermon on Galatians chapter 5, verse 12.

Galatians 5:12

I have it.

And it's a strong wonder why.

So the question becomes today: do we come to God's word with open hands and say whatever he says is good?

Do we trust that the good God in heaven has said specific things for a specific reason?

Or is our faith so weak that specific verbiage, specific severity in our sensitive generation can throw us off track.

The title of our sermon today is Running Well Until You Weren't.

Please read with me God's holy word.

Paul says, You were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth?

This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is trembling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

Our text will break down into the following outline.

Verses seven through nine will be persuasion is never neutral.

Verse 10 will be confidence is a gift we receive.

And verses 11 through 12 will be the offense is what saves us.

I changed this outline like five times, so I apologize if nothing matches, because that's my fault.

We begin with verses seven through nine, persuasion is never neutral.

Paul says, You were running well.

The verbiage there for running well in the Greek is highlighting the fact that they had a solid start and continued doing well for a season.

He doesn't say you started well.

He says you were running well.

They had started the Christian life and were continuing in it faithfully.

One of the atrocities of the church is the fact that you and I rarely believe that anyone is not running well unless their life is a complete wreck.

When everything is completely wrong, then we're like, yeah, okay, that person's not running well.

And we can miss the drift.

Paul says, Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

The word for hindered there is the same word that was used in military and in sport in that time.

The military terminology was the same word that was used for creating a blockade on a road, digging a trench across a road that would impede an army, would stop an army from being able to progress forward.

And in the sport world, it was used to describe someone who was running a race and would intentionally cut into the lane of the person next to them seeking to trip them up.

Paul is not saying that something has happened to them that is super abrupt, that they intentionally chose, but rather is pointing the blame at someone else other than them.

Which is also important because you and I have a tendency to, when people do poorly in life, when they drift away from the course that God has set, we tend to look directly at them and say, What are you doing wrong?

I want you to see from this text, the Galatians are currently failing.

And Paul's prescription is not try harder.

You were running well, get back on, work harder, get that discipline, find the grit.

He points somewhere else.

Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

Verse eight.

The hindrance, the cutting off, the blockade in the way is a persuasion.

You and I have grown up in this very individualistic society, right?

We're all strong, independent folk that don't need nobody.

And yet, the Bible says you are always, whether you like it or not, being persuaded by something.

You are fully convinced of something in your mind, and it's why you do or do not do anything in this life.

It's because you are persuaded, you are convinced.

He says, the thing that's hindering you is this persuasion, and this persuasion is not from him who calls you.

Why did Paul not just say God?

Right?

This persuasion is not from God.

Well, if we look back to Galatians chapter one, verse 15, the word call has a very important salvific or salvation meaning.

The one who calls you refers to God's salvation that chose you before you could do anything worthy of being chosen.

It is a calling that transcends your capacity, that happened before you were even born, before you had the opportunity to fail, as you would.

Now, why does this matter in the sentence?

It's because Paul is showing the two opposing sides in one force here.

This persuasion was adding to God's word.

It was saying, look, yes, it's okay for you to believe that Jesus alone will forgive your sins, that if you put your faith in him, you'll be safe and secure and don't worry about anything.

But if you're serious and you want to make sure you'll go ahead and get circumcised.

One of the biggest problems today when we read the scriptures is we have a very hard time understanding how the old text of 2,000 years ago translates well into today.

There ain't nobody at the front door with schizzers like, all right, who's next?

So what does that look like today?

We could throw the word circumcision around all we want, and really you're just making some sort of tongue twister here.

It often in our day and age looks like God.

I read my Bible every day this last week.

I've been praying consistently.

I served.

Why did this bad thing still happen?

God, I'm trying with all of my effort to please you, and I continue to fail, and when I fail, I find myself in a self-defeating pit.

Legalism no longer has this wonderful outward appearance that's very easy to spot, upon which we can say, Nope, you are clearly adding to the gospel.

But rather, over hundreds of a couple thousand years, legalism has become a lot harder to detect.

Paul asked them, who hindered you from obeying the truth?

And it's realistically the same question that he asked at the beginning of chapter three, when he said, Who bewitched you?

Who put you under a spell that you've just completely forgotten all of the truth?

And you're just like, Yeah, we're gonna get rid of that.

What has happened to you?

And we see that the spell is not a spell at all, but rather is a persuasion.

But the persuasion is degree by degree.

It is a small thing, and that's Paul's entire point.

Because what does he say next?

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

One small addition to the gospel, one small addition of what it looks like to belong in this building once you come through those doors.

One small expectation that we weigh onto other people that God's word has never placed before them.

And the entire lump that's us is poisoned.

Sin never stays isolated.

Wrong doctrine, wrong thinking, wrong believing is never just personal.

Because if all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you hear Pastor Dan coming in, and I now have to wear a suit and tie every Sunday, and I talk about how this is necessary in order for me to be okay to come here and preach, and that it would be inappropriate for me to come and preach in any other way.

I would be unworthy of coming to the pulpit looking any other way.

All of a sudden, that personal belief affects everyone.

And Travis feels uncomfortable coming in as a Jolly Rancher.

Like this is a very real aspect of Christianity where you and I create cultural appropriation and say, look, if you want to belong here, here's how you have to look.

Here are the extras that we require.

Here's how children must act.

Here's what your family must look like.

I can't believe that you do that.

How could you do that?

And we take things, even wisdom, and we make it law.

We're fully convinced this show is wrong to watch.

Well, by golly, don't watch it.

And then we see someone else watching it who's a Christian.

And what do we do?

Do we pray for them?

Do we encourage them in the truth?

Or do we quietly create this separation of, well, real Christians wouldn't watch that.

Or at least not very mature ones, like immature ones would probably do that.

Which what does that do?

It immediately puts you in the higher category.

You did it, you have created the ladder.

And it's so easy to do.

And the scary part is that it's actually easier the more mature you are in Christ, because you have more categories, you have more hooks to hang things on.

You have more reasons to judge other people.

Because God's brought you so far and you've seen so much.

And yet, one of the amazing graces of God is that when you are very immature in Christ, the only thing you can see is the next step.

All you can see is the next thing that God has you working on.

And you don't see the giant staircase that dwarfs you and shows you just how small you actually are, because God is kind and knows that you would never survive that.

And yet we can forget that.

Right?

We're like the uh the grandma or the grandpa that the the parent is exhausted and is complaining and is like, I just can't handle this baby.

I don't know what to do.

And what's the natural inclination?

Let me tell you something.

Raising a kid in the 50s was something.

You ain't got nothing with your screens and your swirly dwirlies and stuff.

It's easy to minimize others after we've gone through something, as opposed to using that maturity to love, to be gracious and patient and kind and gentle with them and humble ourselves to go under the burden with them and say, I will sit here with you.

It is easy to unintentionally use our maturity as a weapon to harm those whom Christ tenderly loves.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Paul says this is not a small thing because when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to God's family and what it means to belong and to be saved, anything added destroys the entire relationship.

And that will be his end point here at the end of the sermon.

Paul looks at the Galatians and he doesn't just say this is a message from God, it's the it's a message from the one who calls you.

A God who calls you has nothing to do with your performance, your last week.

He's not sending you a message based off of how your standing has looked recently.

And Paul is saying all of this because he wants you and I to be more concerned with the source of the information than the delivery.

We can read the sermon today, the the title, we can we can read the verses and be like, that's harsh, that's mean, that's severe.

And that could be more important to us than what required the message.

Paul is not warning against individual private habit.

This has nothing to do with your individual Christianity, and has everything to do with this corporate body.

Because what you believe affects everyone in this room.

So, when you look at your last week, what voice have you started listening to regarding your standing with God?

Is it the one that nags you when you miss Bible reading?

Is it the one that condemns you whenever you fail and fall short?

I want you to work on identifying where the voice is actually coming from.

Because when you and I sin and we are saved and we are in Christ, the response is not condemnation, but conviction.

Condemnation says there's nothing for you to do.

You are judged, you are under this weight, be crushed.

Conviction says, I have gone the wrong direction, I can feel that and desire to turn.

There is a difference, and you and I tend to conflate the terms and act like condemnation is always conviction.

But if your conviction leads you to depression, if your conviction leads you to anxiety, if your conviction leads you to performance mindset, it's just condemnation wearing the clothes of conviction.

It's a fake and it's not real.

Sincerity is not the test of whether a voice is worthy of being listened to.

Urgency is not the test of whether a voice is to be listened to or not.

Even a Bible verse ripped out of context, we're really good at that in our generation.

The only test is this: Does this message leave my standing resting on Christ alone, or does it move it from there?

Does this lead me to depend more on Christ?

Does it lead me to the cross?

Does it lead me to thankfulness and gratitude and awe and wonder and worship?

Or does it lead me to sin?

One of the cool things that you will not be able to see in an English translation is that the word persuasion is actually in this text three times.

And the third one here is this confidence in verse 10.

Confidence is a gift we receive, verse 10.

He says, I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view.

And the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

Paul's confidence is not in the fact that they're currently running well.

You and I are great at having confidence in people when they're doing well.

Right?

When people are growing, when they're being healthy, we're like, I have confidence.

God's doing some work in you.

And when they backslide, when they fail, when they go through months of misery, when they go from a participating part of the family to barely a part of the family, what do we do?

Our confidence naturally wanes and gets smaller and smaller.

Why?

Because we often very easily, unintentionally put our confidence of God's work in people's lives and how they are currently doing, or how we feel about what they're doing.

Paul does no such thing.

He says, I have confidence in the Lord, that you will take no other view.

Paul is confident that you will be persuaded for a season, but not forever, because God is the author, perfecter, and ender of our salvation.

He is the champion of our souls.

He is the one that brings it to an end and promises its complete.

My salvation has never rested for even one second on what I choose, on what I think, on what I feel, but rather the gracious God of the universe chose me before the foundations of the world.

And again, you and I, in our logical reasoning, are like, well, that doesn't make scientific sense.

We're like, well, that's because God exists outside of time.

And science doesn't have anything for outside of time because everything has to be measurable in science.

God is so much bigger than you and I could ever think or imagine.

He is so much greater.

We'll read text in the Psalms that says that all of the pleasures in this life, all pleasure, is in the right hand of God.

And we look at that and we think about grandpa in the sky in the back of our head, and we're like, eh, I don't see it.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Like, have you watched a new movie recently?

Like, that's really fun.

Have you had a surprise birthday party?

Like, God's not doing that for me.

And we easily can miss the fact that every good thing in this life, every pleasurable moment, every satisfaction we have is meant to point us to him.

That they're all just a small sampling of how good he is and how wonderful life with him will be one day.

But I want you to notice that Paul is giving this confidence to the Galatians as a gift.

When you and I are failing, it's very easy for people to speak down to us, to be impatient with us, to be angry with us, frustrated.

That's a fancy word for anger.

Irritated, another fancy word for anger.

And in that moment, what most people really need is for someone to look at them like Paul looks at the stumbling Galatians and to say, I know you're failing right now.

I know that you suck at life, but guess what?

I trust that God will work all this out.

I trust that God will take care of you.

But that's hard to do because you and I wish we were sovereign in our loved ones' lives.

We wish that we were just in control and we could make decisions for people and stop them from doing stupid things.

And stop them from having pain and suffering.

Paul says, I have confidence, God will bring you through.

And he has confidence as well that the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

Notice that Paul is very gentle with the Galatians.

Like he has direct confrontations with them, right?

He calls them foolish.

He looks them square in the eyes and says, You are doing a wrong thing.

But his most severe words are for the people leading the wrong way.

The Bible has this standard for leadership that really helps us to understand why churches are healthy or are not healthy.

Everything flows down from leadership, and it's always been that way.

From the start of time to the beginning of the family unit to nations, to churches in general, leadership has always been the main responsibility.

And it's fascinating that the Bible doesn't give us a bunch of leadership qualities for the leaders of the church, but rather it is ninety-five percent character.

It is the man that you are when no one's looking.

It is the man you are when there's pressure and persecution and suffering, and people lie about you and hate you and cheat you and steal from you.

In that moment, the man you are shows everything.

And we all naturally desire to follow, whether we believe it or not, and we imitate those that we follow.

Paul says the judgment in this verse is not on the weak believers who are stumbling and will come back.

The judgment is on the men teaching the wrong thing.

And that's sobering.

Especially in the day and age we find ourselves today, because teaching is everywhere.

The good old interwebs has put it on every person's phone and computer, laptop, tablet, the whole kit and caboodle.

James chapter 3, verse 1 says, Not many of you should become teachers because they will be held to a higher account.

James 3:1

And James goes on to explain why.

It's because the tongue is a restless evil, it is a fire, a poison, is a small thing that controls the rest of the body.

Which is why you can find yourself often saying things and then wondering why did I just say that?

That was the exact opposite of what I should have said.

Imagine having to be held accountable for people's souls one day for what you taught.

Paul is giving the Galatians a warning, but he's also giving this warning to help them.

We can look at the scriptures and we find the warning text to be uncomfortable.

They make us question our salvation.

They make us question the validity of the Bible.

Is this real?

Is this true?

Is this not this is nice?

And we can miss the fact that the warnings of the Bible are much like uh the rumble strip on the side of the road.

You know, when you're driving at like two in the morning and you're like almost passing out driving, but you just gotta get to your destination and you go a little bit to the side, and all of a sudden, like no one hits a rumble strip and was like, that was pleasant.

Like, no one's ever done that.

And if you have, we have to talk.

The rumble strip is obnoxious.

But the rumble strip is not condemning you in that moment, saying you are always a bad driver who never makes it to their destination.

The rumble strip is actually the means upon which you are going to be able to make it to your destination.

And in the same way, the warnings of scripture are meant to be read for those who are in Christ as what keeps you going.

They are not what ensures you will fail, but rather what exactly promises to bring you to the end.

I want you to notice that in chapter four, Paul said he was perplexed about the Galatians.

He's afraid that he wasted his work on them.

We see a very real man here.

In one letter, he looks at them and says, I don't get you.

I don't know what happened or what went wrong.

Uh, also, I'm kind of worried that I poured all this into you and uh it's nothing.

But then he's able to ground himself and the Galatians in God because that is the only foundation worth building on.

That is the only mast that keeps us stable in the midst of the storm.

When you think about being a Christian five, ten, twenty years from now, what do you think will keep you on that track?

Is it church attendance?

Giving enough money, serving, reading your Bible, finally putting to death those sins that you never told anybody about.

Or decades from now, will all the people that are in this church be able to clearly and freely say, we are only here because God has not let go.

Or do we need to be humbled a few more times before we get there?

I want you to take the hard warnings of scripture as parental care, not as condemnation.

But I also want you to see that the verdict for the false teachers is not your responsibility, but rather that Paul gives that over to God and says, God's got this.

Don't worry about things outside of your sphere.

God will handle.

And we get to verses 11 and 12.

The offense is what saves us.

Paul says, But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

Paul was apparently pointed the finger at and said, When you're with Gentiles, you preach circumcision is unnecessary.

But when you're with not Gentiles, you say you need to be circumcised.

And here's the problem: much like any sinful accusation, it had a thread of truth in it.

Because you know what Paul did with Timothy?

Timothy wasn't circumcised.

And he said, Timothy, you're getting circumcised.

Why?

For the furtherment of the gospel.

It will give you access to the synagogues.

You're half Jewish.

We're gonna make it happen.

And so they can logically point to that and say, see, with Titus, he's saying, No, I refuse to be get him circumcised, but with Timothy, he circumcised him.

He's a hypocrite.

So he has to respond to this.

And notice how he responds.

He says, if I'm still preaching circumcision, which is what they're claiming I'm doing, why am I still being persecuted?

Like if I'm if I'm saying the thing that they want me to say, why do people still hate me?

Why am I still getting thrown out of towns?

Why am I still getting beat?

Or as he'll say later on, that he has the marks of Christ on him.

It doesn't make logical sense.

Paul was not anti-circumcision in general.

He was only pro-circumcision, though, when it was going to further the mission of the kingdom.

So with Timothy, it gave him access to a mission field that Timothy, as a half-Jew, would have access to.

Titus, full Greek, has no chance, no shot.

So it's not profitable.

But not only that, with Titus, they were adding on this salvation aspect that he needed this in order to be in good standing.

And Paul says, you will not turn a good thing into a God thing.

I refuse.

And he says, in that case, the offense of the cross has been removed.

We can forget how offensive the gospel actually is.

I heard a very popular preacher once say in a viral video clip that when we share the gospel with others, we're giving them exactly what they want.

And there is no greater lie than that.

The Bible says you and I are dead in our sins and trespasses.

Says that we are blind, that we're deaf, that we're unable to understand, that the devil has blinded us, and that we are a slave to our sin, that we obey a master who's not God.

And yet, the good news of the gospel is exactly what those people want.

And the answer is the exact opposite.

That when we preach the gospel, the true gospel to people, that Jesus came and died for their sins because they were going to go to hell for their sins.

That if you've lied or cheated or stole one time, that's worthy of going to hell.

Because God is perfect and his standard is perfect.

That the world looks at that and they push against, they grind their teeth and say, what kind of standard is that?

Murderers maybe go to hell.

Not people who tell lies.

Well, maybe politicians that lie would go to hell, but like not me.

The offense of the cross has been removed.

Paul says, if all of this is true, what they're accusing me of, then my gospel is not offensive to them.

But he says his scars settle it.

It is often the case that people who make accusations at Christians for being hypocrites for speaking one way and then another.

That Christians that have been in the race for a little bit can show the marks and say, I've paid a price.

You may be saying words, but I've lived a life.

And what all of us know in this room is the old phrase is true, where they said, I can't hear what you're saying over how loud your life is.

The question is not just what words do we say?

Do we agree with the right things?

But rather is our life slowly but surely revealing this truth.

In verse twelve, Paul gives the ultimate theological point for his enemies here.

They wish to circumcise in order to be in right standing.

And verse twelve is shocking, but it is not a crude joke, and Paul is not losing his temper.

They were holding up the knife of circumcision as the ticket into the family of God.

Paul says, Fine, if the knife gains you entry, then go all the way with it.

Because Deuteronomy chapter 23, verse 1, and this is what he's referring back to, bars that exact man from the assembly of the Lord.

Deuteronomy 23:1

Deuteronomy 23, 1 says that eunuchs were not allowed to be in the assembly.

And so Paul is referring back and says, you know what?

You think that this knife is saving you, but really it's what's cutting you off from God's family.

It is what's severing you from Christ.

Paul says, if you take the knife of human performance too far, the very law you are trying to impress will lock you out of the house.

He speaks this severely because these men are not confused seekers.

They're not just immature men that are speaking incorrectly.

Those people need patience.

These are blind guides leading sheep off a cliff.

One of the applications from this text for you and I is when you share the gospel, when you share the truth of the cross with somebody, do you tend to soften a part of the message?

Or skip a part?

Or are you ashamed to even share it with a coworker or with a friend?

And when you do, who are you trying to protect?

Is it that person's soul that's not promised tomorrow?

Or is it your own pride and comfort in this life?

Someone cut into the Galatians lane with a quiet persuasion that did not come from God.

And it was already spreading like yeast through the dough.

Paul was confident God would bring his people back and equally confident that the legalists would face judgment.

And he flatly refused to remove the one thing that they hated in his preaching.

Because it was the only thing that could save.

We need to think of it this way.

If you're going to hold on to the point with the offense of the gospel, the part that makes cough medicine taste bad is the active ingredient that does the work.

And that's why we have cherry flavoring that's added to it.

The offense of the gospel is what makes it work.

If your gospel that you share doesn't hurt someone's pride, if the gospel you share doesn't humble people to where they think that they are less than others, that they are not above anyone, you may have taken something away from the good news.

The cross was offensive to Jewish ears, because as we learned in Galatians 3.13, Christ hung on a cross for us.

And to the Jew, anyone that hung on a tree was cursed and condemned.

Because Christ took the curse.

And that is why Paul will close this letter by saying these words far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the only thing I have to be proud about, is what Jesus did.

There's nothing in my life that I hold on to as worthy of just about anything.

Because Christ is more than enough.

And a life that can agree with that is one that has been humbled by the truth.

This week you will be persuaded of something.

Voices will call out to you from your phone, your workplace, your anxious thoughts.

I want you to make sure the one you follow comes from the one who actually called you.

And when a voice whispers and says that you need one more thing to be safe, one more success, one more boundary test that was successful, and you did it.

One more ounce of performance.

I want you to answer it with the only sentence that matters.

Christ took the curse for me.

And there is nothing left for me to add.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we come before you.

And Lord, we ask that you would do a mighty work in this church.

Not because we are just doing all the right things or have all the right answers.

But Lord, because you are kind and you worked through broken people, just like me.

Lord, we ask that in this moment your word would go forth and not return void, that you would change hearts and minds for eternity.

And that Sovereign Grace Bible Church would be different.

That we would be a people of love, who love you more each day and love each other more each day.

That we would give our lives in sacrificial service, that we would humble ourselves before your cross, and that we would accept the mission field that you've placed us on.

That here in this county, in this community, at our workplace, our friend groups, Lord, you have given us people to share your truth with.

Give us the boldness to walk forward in that.

And Lord, help us when we're not running well, to not look at ourselves, but to look at the one who has already completed the race, the one who guarantees that we'll make it.

Help us, Lord, in our weakness.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.