Galatians 5a (6-11-25)

What's up everybody? This is Pastor James and welcome back to our New Week Bible

Study. Today we're going to start chapter 5 as Paul begins to talk about this

wonderful freedom that we have in Christ. So read with me and we'll start out with

verses 1 through 6. So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay

free and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law. Listen, I Paul tell

you this, if you are counting on circumcision to make you right with

God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I'll say it again, if you are trying

to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every

regulation and the whole law of Moses. For if you are trying to make yourselves

right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ. You have

fallen away from God's grace. But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to

receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. For when we place our

faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being

uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love. Okay, so

what we have is a direct continuation of chapter 4 as Paul talked about us

being the children of Sarah rather than children of Hagar. Now we are free

children from the free woman and as a result we get to share in that freedom.

And Jesus himself came from the bloodline of Sarah and all of the

promises that came through her and Abraham that were given to her children

are now also given to us even though we were not physically born from that

bloodline. Even the Messiah Jesus was the main part of this promise and we

get to share in the benefits of the Messiah because we put our trust and

faith in Him and that main benefit is being free. So we must make sure that we

stay free in Christ and not get tangled up in slavery to the law because

circumcision is just a part of the law. You cannot be made right by only obeying

a small part of the law. You must obey the whole law in order to be made right

by the law. Jesus Christ was the only man to ever live who was able to do this.

This is where the bondage is because the law is much bigger and harder to live by

than just circumcision. In fact, it is impossible to live by from a human

perspective. Jesus was able to live by the law because He was fully God and

yet fully man. And so no one, not even Moses, could do it. Only Jesus was able

to live according to His own standards and this is why Paul says you must obey

every regulation and not just circumcision. And because Christ came to

set us free from the law, if we then turn back to the law, we are

essentially cutting ourselves off from Christ because we're no longer putting

our faith in Jesus. We're putting our faith in the law instead. So the main

thing that false teachers were communicating to the Galatians was that

they needed to be circumcised in order to be saved and this was where the

gospel was being manipulated and changed and this is the main thing that Paul was

having the problem with. So they were making it a requirement or a task to be

completed that these Galatian people had to succumb to in order to be truly

saved according to their opinion. But salvation is not given by what we do.

Salvation is given by what Christ has done and we only receive it through faith

and belief. So this is why Paul is adamant about not trying to live by

the law because when we approach God with our abilities, we are cut off from

Christ and His grace. But if we approach God based off of the sacrifice, grace, and

mercy of Christ, then we are accepted only by the grace of God. God moves us

into the next gear when it comes to our relationships with God. After we receive

salvation through faith in Christ, we must live by the Spirit and that means

that we are constantly submitting ourselves to Christ so that He can

remove everything in us that is impure and sinful. And as He removes all this

stuff, He replaces all these things with the presence of His Holy Spirit and it's

by this that we are able to live by the Spirit's power and receive the

righteousness that God promised to us so long ago. So it doesn't matter if you're

circumcised or uncircumcised because your physical body is not what determines

your spiritual health. Rather, it is your faith and the fruits of the Holy Spirit

that show who you truly belong to. So let's read verses 7 through 15 and let's

talk about them. It says, you were running the race so well, who has held

you back from following the truth? It certainly isn't God for He is the one

who called you to freedom. This false teaching is like a little yeast that

spreads through the whole batch of dough. I'm trusting the Lord to keep you

from believing false teachings. God will judge that person whoever He is who has

been confusing you. Dear brothers and sisters, if I were still preaching that

you must be circumcised as some say I do, why am I still being persecuted? If I

were no longer preaching salvation through the cross of Christ, no one

would be offended. I just wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you

by circumcision would mutilate themselves. For you have been called to

live in freedom my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy

your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For

the whole law can be summed up in this one command. Love your neighbor as

yourself, but if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out and

be aware of destroying one another. Okay, so Paul is plainly expressing his

disappointment in the churches of Galatia. They were doing so well they

were following the truth, but not anymore. God is not responsible for their

failures because God is the one who called them away from their sinful

bondage and into freedom. It is the false teachers and Paul compares them to

yeast and yeast is a fungus and it grows and it spreads all throughout the

dough and sometimes the Bible uses yeast as a positive example, but here it's used

as a negative example and most of the time yeast is used as a negative

example because it just once it's in something it's there and you can't get

it out. It takes it would take something miraculous to remove it. So regardless if

we're not careful to protect ourselves and those that we're responsible for, even

the smallest amount of sin or false teaching can spread quickly and infect the

group as a whole. Now this may sound like Paul is trying to preach fear and

like he's trying to use scare tactics, but this is just truth. False doctrines

and sin can set up and spread really fast. It's amazing how fast people will

grab onto stuff and then it takes root and before you know it it's a very

common thing and I have seen this on social media platforms with people

promoting their thoughts or agendas and all of a sudden it's this big question

forum where everybody's curious about it now and it is just absolutely not

scripturally based at all. Now Paul talks about how God will judge the person who

is spreading the false teachings because what they are doing is hurting everyone

who's a part of the churches of Galatia and it's hurting the kingdom as a whole.

So in verses 11 through 12 these are pretty interesting because Paul begins

with talking about how he has stayed true to the original gospel message. He

and others would be happy and not persecuting him but they are and so if

he stops preaching salvation through the cross of Christ most people would

leave him alone. That's the thing that you need to see even in our day and

time. I mean Muslims are advocated for people who are violent and and attack

other people and kill other people and I understand that there are people who

claim to be Christians who do evil things and hurt other people as well but

this is not an accepted practice among Christianity. There are

large groups of Muslims who are very violent and believe with all that they

are that anyone who does not practice their faith should be killed immediately

and they are very willing to go out and do that. So other religions, other groups,

other people who promote all kinds of evil are advocated for and and stood up

for and represented well and made sure that they're allowed to have their

practices and do their thing and that they're not persecuted but when you

look at Christianity even though one quarter of the world professes

Christianity, Christianity is one of the most persecuted groups of people on earth

around the world even in America. Now in America we're not experiencing like

physical persecution like people aren't being killed or necessarily beaten or

jailed for their beliefs but we are very much ostracized and not given the

same opportunities as other people because there's something about the name

of Jesus that brings on spiritual warfare. It brings on persecution. There's

something out there that does not want the name of Jesus being spread and you

can tell it. When you start trying to live for Christ, there's something that

begins to battle you and you know that it battles you personally, it battles the

church, it battles the kingdom of God in general and this is what Paul's

talking about. Look, if I stop preaching salvation through the cross, people would

leave me alone but because I preach Jesus, everyone persecutes me. This is

what he's saying. No one would be offended if I didn't preach Jesus but

people are offended by me because I preach Jesus. People hate the message

of the cross because it is truth and the truth condemns us or the truth

sets us free. In Christ we are set free. Out of Christ we're condemned and

that's what people hate about it. So in verse 12, this is our verse of the day.

Paul is frustrated and he is angry as he's writing this and Paul always has a

little bit of sarcasm and strong language in his writings and this is

perhaps one of his strongest. He makes this statement that he wishes those who

want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves and this is

actually the PG version of what Paul is really saying because when you look at

what it originally says in the original Greek, Paul is basically saying that he

wishes that they would castrate themselves. So don't just circumcise the

excess skin but just cut the whole thing off. He kind of goes out

there and goes a little hardcore as he's saying this and some translations

change it to say cut themselves off from from Christ or cut themselves off

you know from a general term. The NLT which is what I use reads to mutilate

themselves but he's being very dramatic in his writing by saying that if

circumcision is so important why not just go ahead and lead by example and

cut the whole thing off so you can show how holy you truly are and they're

making a really big deal about circumcision. So Paul throws a little bit

of gas on the issue on the fire and makes his big statement and as

ridiculous as it would be to castrate oneself for God, the idea that everyone

had to circumcise themselves in order to be saved as Christians is just as

ridiculous. It's through the grace of Jesus Christ. So verse 13 goes back to

this original theme of the message of the gospel. We are called to live in

freedom. We're not called to live in bondage to do anything in this world even

the law but we are not supposed to use that freedom to serve ourselves or our

desires. Rather we use the freedom Christ has given us to serve one another in

love and Paul reminds them of what Christ said when he summed up the

entire law to love one another as you love yourself but if you're criticizing

one another about not being circumcised talking about one another trying to

advance yourselves over others and even trying to destroy one another then you

cannot truly be loving your neighbor. There's no room for love when personal

gain has a seat at the table and that's how Paul ends chapter 5. Alright

let's pray together. Well fathers thank you again for this day and thank you

for watching over us and guidance thank you for your word and I pray that as

you talk about freedom that we have in Jesus Christ that we would truly cherish

that freedom and take full advantage of it not to serve ourselves but to serve

one another in love. Lord help us not to focus on being rule followers but help

us to focus on emptying ourselves out so that we can be filled more and more

with the Spirit and as we're filled more and more with your Holy Spirit we

have more and more freedom in you as a result. Lord we love you and we thank

you and ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Alright guys thanks for tuning in for

another week and thank you for being a part of the Graham Chapel family if you

can't make it in person catch us on Facebook, YouTube and the podcast. We

love you hope you have a great week.