Galatians: The Gospel Frees Us From Religiosity (5:1-15)

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Our second reading is from the book of Galatians chapter 5, verses 1 through 15.

Galatians 5:1–15

For freedom, Christ has set us free.

Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.

You have fallen away from grace.

For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

You were running well.

Who hindered you from obeying your truth?

This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

A little leaven leavens the whole body.

And the one who is troubling 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 unsettled you would emasculate themselves.

For you were called to freedom, brothers.

Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

This is the word of the Lord.

Sisters, brothers, for freedom.

Christ has set us free.

Stand firm, therefore.

Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

That's right.

Lord Jesus, we believe that you are the bread of life.

Come from heaven.

You are the living bread that nourishes us to eternal life.

So, Lord, through your word this morning, in Galatians, as we come to your table, we pray that by faith we will once again taste and see how good you are towards us.

How faithful and gracious and merciful and generous you are towards us.

Lord, would you ground us in the gospel once again by your Holy Spirit?

We pray.

Amen.

We're getting ready to land here.

Paul is transitioning from his second major section of the letter that we've been working through the last couple of weeks.

He's getting ready to enter to the last section of the letter, where he's going to deal primarily with what all of this looks like.

And he's going to talk about what it looks like to live into the gospel in real time.

So if you're a little bit more, have you given me a lot to think about here?

I'm a little bit ready to get to what I need to do here.

Then the coming weeks, that's more what we're going to be focusing on.

But for now, Paul is transitioning out of the point that he's making in chapters three and four and into this final section of the letter.

I figure this is probably as good a point as any for us to think a little bit of where we've come through the book of Galatians, through Paul's letter to the Galatians, and then set up kind of where it is that we're going here.

I think the primary question that Paul is dealing with in this letter is this.

It's something like this.

How can sinners be made right with God?

If God is holy, if God is perfect, if God is just, then how can unholy, imperfect, unjust sinners be in a right relationship with him?

How is that possible?

Paul planted this church in the Roman province of Galatia.

He pastored this church, and then he continued on with his missionary journey.

And after Paul left, a few self-appointed teachers decided it would be a good idea to talk about what the gospel is really about.

Paul preached a gospel of grace, a gospel where Christ has done everything that we can't do for ourselves.

But here's the real gospel.

The real gospel is believe in Jesus, sure.

But you've got to work for it.

Believe in Jesus, sure, but you better be ready to do all the right things if you want to be in the right with God.

It's a gospel not of grace, but a gospel of religiosity.

Right?

A gospel of here's what you need to do to be made right with God.

Paul wants to be very clear.

It is a choice between religiosity or the gospel of grace.

So in chapters 3 and 4, Paul is taking inventory of what belongs to the gospel of grace and what belongs to religiosity.

And the side of the ledger that belongs to religiosity, we have the law, we have works.

We have what the end result of which is this identity of slavery.

We are slaves to constantly be striving to do all that we can do to be perfect, to perfectly fulfill God's law.

It's endless.

It becomes who we are.

Paul writes in Galatians 3.10, all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse.

For it is written, curse be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.

If we're appealing to what we do for God to make us in the right with God, we will find that that is an endless burden, an endless slavery.

That's not the gospel of grace.

The gospel of grace, says Paul, belongs with faith and God's promise, and not an identity of slavery, but an identity of sonship.

Where we're rooted and grounded in God the Father's love for us, freely and generously given.

It gives us confidence to cry out, Abba Father.

Paul goes on to say in Galatians 3, no one is justified by God before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith.

Christ, Paul says, redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, so that in Christ Jesus we might receive the promised spirit through faith.

Because you are sons.

God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.

We talked a little bit about what that spirit of sonship means.

In Paul's mind, that includes men and women together having a common inheritance in the gospel.

So that's why Paul can say you're no longer a slave, but a son.

And if a son, then an heir through God.

The Son of God became human, so that we human beings may be made sons of God.

Everything that is Christ's is given to us by grace.

That's the gospel, Paul says.

And it's an either or.

Either we trust in our religiosity, either we trust in all the things we do to earn God's favor, or we trust in all the things God has done for us in Christ to secure us, to draw us to himself.

It's an either-or.

And that's the point Paul wants to drive home in our passage this morning.

I spent this week writing a three-point sermon.

I realized last night it's really more of a two-point sermon.

And then I realized about a half an hour ago it's really more of a one-point sermon.

So I'm going to be doing a little bit of jazz up here in the puppet.

But here's Paul's point.

Paul's point is that the gospel frees us from our religiosity.

The gospel of grace frees us from that religiosity which says it's up to you.

It's up to you to do all the good things that will earn God's favor.

The gospel frees us from religiosity.

So when you take up your order of service, take up your Bible, let's have a look at Galatians chapter 5 together.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

He is going to land this point that he's been making for the last two chapters, and then he's going to transition into what the rest of the letter is going to do with that.

But let's not leave what Paul is saying here without understanding the gospel so clearly.

Because if we can grasp this, friends, it can be comfort and assurance and liberation for us.

If we miss it, then we will only ever find our Christianity a burden.

It's not meant to be a burden, it's a comfort.

So let's discover what that's all about.

The gospel frees us from our religiosity.

Let's start at verse 2 and then I'm going to make my way back to verse 1 here.

Look, Paul says, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.

You have fallen away from grace.

Paul's making a point about religiosity here.

Paul says if you accept circumcision, Christ will be no advantage to you.

So let's, we've talked a little bit in the past about what circumcision is and what Paul means by circumcision.

This is a good point, I think, to revisit that.

By circumcision, Paul is not talking about circumcision as such.

So circumcision is one of those things that are just so intimately bound up in the Jewish identity.

It symbolizes in Paul's mind, as in every first century Jew's mind, what it means to be subject to the whole of God's law.

I am a subject to all of God's law, and this symbolizes that, right?

So Paul wouldn't have an issue with circumcision per se.

He would, later in his ministry, he'll have Timothy circumcised in order to cross a cultural barrier and bear witness to the gospel to Jews.

But I don't think Paul would take any issue with a medical practice of circumcision.

I know that's debated, but Paul isn't trying to single out circumcision as such.

What he's singling, he's singling out is a sign act which signifies submission and obedience to the whole law of God.

This is what that would mean in his imagination, in his reader's imagination.

What he's talking about when he talks about circumcision is what we might call religiosity.

It's doing all the right things for God's sake.

I know that I'm right with God when I've done right by God.

That's what circumcision is signaling in Paul's mind.

And if he says, look, if that's what you accept, if that's your appeal in order to be made right with God, then you need to be warned.

Three things he warns about.

If we trust in religiosity rather than the gospel of grace, he says, I testify to everyone who accepts circumcision that he is, number one, obligated to keep the whole law.

So if your appeal to God, to be made right to God, is look, God, I'm doing all the right things by you, then you better be ready to say, I'm doing all the right things by you, without exception.

We may even think of our Lord Jesus' words, be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

What if he means that?

What if when he says be perfect, he means be perfect.

Live up to the standard of the law.

If your appeal is I'm doing right by God, you better be ready to say, and I never do wrong by God.

Who among us can say that?

That's Paul's point.

You're obligated to keep the whole law.

That's not a comfort.

And you're severed from Christ, Paul says.

Verse 4, you are severed from Christ, you would be justified by the law.

You who would be justified, by the way.

Not you who are justified by the law, as if there's two options to be right with God.

There's doing it yourself, and then there's letting God do it for you.

No, Paul's saying in your imagination, you think you're in the right with God.

But what you're really doing, you think you're drawing towards God in Christ, you're really cutting Christ off.

There is no Jesus plus in the mathematics of salvation.

Paul says, I know the math formula you're doing right now.

You're saying it's Jesus plus our good works equals our being made right with God.

And Paul is saying there is no addition with Jesus, there's only subtraction.

If you try to add anything to Jesus, you end up subtracting Jesus from that equation altogether.

Jesus is the means by which we are made right with God.

False talk.

That's Paul's point.

If you appeal to something beyond Jesus, you're really cutting yourself off.

You're severing yourself from Christ.

You're obligated to keep the whole law.

You're severed from Christ, and you are fallen away from grace.

God's free and generous goodwill towards us in Christ.

Because if we sever ourselves from Christ, if we trust in what we do and not what he's done, then what else can we do but fall away from grace?

Christ is God's means of grace towards us.

He is God's heart of grace towards us.

No Jesus, no grace.

It leaves us in a difficult position, doesn't it?

I wonder if this right here is why so many find Christianity to be so burdensome, so exhausting, so tiring.

I wonder if we were to stop right here, whether folks are outside of the church looking, reading the New Testament or looking at Christians, thinking that just looks exhausting.

Sometimes it's Christians who live their whole life in the church who find themselves spiritually dry and exhausted and burdened.

And here's one of the reasons I think why.

It's because we are appealing to what we're doing for God's sake to be made right with Him.

We are not placing our trust in what God has done for us in Christ.

See, one leads us to an endless striving and an anxiety that we might not make it.

But another is security and comfort, knowing God's generous heart towards us.

One is us trying to perform, the other is one is us trying to receive, receive it, like a gift.

Even having the Father open our hands to receive that gift.

Do you see the difference there?

Paul is saying we can't make a mistake here.

This is not an intramural theological debate within the life of the church.

There are intramural theological debates we can have.

We can disagree on the mode of baptism, or we can disagree about different views that we might take exactly on the Lord's table, but we can all find gospel fellowship together, even if we have some different ideas of how this all works.

Paul is not saying this is not one of those, you know, take it or leave it, different opinions within, you know, one church.

This is like splitting the church in half.

One is a church of grace, another is a church of self-righteousness.

One is a church of what God has done for you, another is a church where you're endlessly trying to do right by God.

This will rip the church in half.

Paul wants to say, don't miss it.

This is the tragedy that the Galatians have missed the gospel, the gospel of grace, the gospel that secures them, the gospel that comforts them, the gospel which brings us to Christ.

And this is what this is the point Paul wants to make about the nature of the gospel, verses 5 and 6.

It's through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

See, if we appeal to our religiosity to make us right before God, then Christ will be of no advantage to us.

Because it's really up to us, isn't it?

What he did was nice, but it's really up to me.

There's no advantage there.

But Paul's saying the opposite is also true.

If your trust is not in what you do for God, but what God's done for you through the cross and resurrection, Christ is of every advantage to you.

Because you point to your Savior and you say, whatever needs doing, he's already done for me.

And he is doing it, and he will do it for me.

That's the assurance of the gospel.

That's the hope of righteousness that Paul is talking about in verse 5.

It is a real confidence that we are in the right.

We are righteous before God.

There is nothing that separates us from our holy and perfect Heavenly Father.

We have a real confidence before Him, not founded on what we've done, but in what Christ has done.

And that's why Paul says it's through the Spirit by faith that we ourselves eagerly await this hope.

We'll talk a lot about the Holy Spirit in the weeks to come because he's going to show up more and more, as Paul concludes this letter here.

But for now, let's say this.

We've already seen the Spirit show up and work a spirit of sonship within us, crying, Abba, Father, right?

Bringing us that childlike dependency and intimacy with God, our Heavenly Father.

Now Paul is saying it's through the Spirit that a hope of righteousness is worked within us.

So here's what we should conclude, friends.

We should conclude that the Holy Spirit is God's personal and empowering work at work within us.

Giving us confidence before God through Christ.

If we can approach God with confidence, it's because of the Spirit's work within us.

Working a hope of righteousness.

It's God's work within us that gives us that confidence.

We simply receive it by faith, by living and active faith in God's work of it, not in our work for God's sake.

So this is not religiosity.

Paul says that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accounts for anything.

So that's an interesting thing to say, I think, because Paul is saying whether it's religion or irreligion, moralism or immorality, right?

Both are equally bankrupt.

Both are us appealing to what we do before God.

Neither is appealing to what God has done for us in Christ.

What a difference.

This is the good news of Jesus, friends.

We are free from our religiosity.

Not because we've earned it, not because we've tried hard enough to make it, but because Jesus has climbed down into the pit and pulled us up.

Jesus has done for us what we could not do for ourselves.

And if we feel obligated, and if we feel severed, and if we feel fallen from grace, it's only because we have lost sight of the fact that Jesus is doing for us what we can't do for ourselves.

When I look at myself in the spiritual mirror, of course I'm going to feel obligated.

Of course I'm going to feel severed.

Of course I'm going to feel fallen.

Why?

Because that's where the law leaves me.

It's when I look at the cross.

It's when I remember the resurrection.

It's when I remember the hope of righteousness.

That's when I'm filled with comfort and assurance.

I have to look outside of myself to find that, not inside.

That's the freedom Paul's describing here.

So on the way back from Germany, I watched a favorite movie of mine again.

It's a movie called Saving Private Ryan.

Now, if we were to use this as an illustration, I'm going to shamelessly recycle it again.

You've heard me use it at our last Good Friday service here.

So I'll be brief.

Saving Private Ryan said during the Second World War, Tom Hanks leads a squad, an American unit, to go rescue Private Ryan from behind enemy lines.

And in the climax of the movie, Tom Hanks selflessly lays down his life to save the life of Private Ryan of Matt Damon, right?

And as Tom Hanks lies mortally wounded, he utters his last words to Matt Damon.

He says, earn this.

Now, what really struck me in this last watch is what an elderly Private Ryan has to say at uh Tom Hanks's uh grave.

So he comes with his family and his Old age to pay tribute to this man who saved his life.

He's standing over the grave and he's weeping.

And this is what Private Ryan has to say to the man who saved his life.

He says, I tried to live my life the best that I could.

I hope that was enough.

I hope that at least in your eyes, I've earned what you've done for me.

Friends, I wonder if Christians look at the cross and often think the same thing.

I wonder if we look at the cross sometimes and we think, I've tried to live my life the best that I could, I hope that was enough.

I hope that, at least in your eyes, I earn what you've done for me.

Do you see how that belongs on the ledger of religiosity?

The ledger of what we do for God?

Do you see the anxiety, the uncertainty that results?

I'm thinking of a different scenario for Private Ryan.

What if instead of an American captain who's ordered to go save Private Ryan?

So he does it out of duty, what if this was Ryan's older brother, who loved Private Ryan more than anything else, who sacrifices himself to save his brother, and looks at his brother and doesn't say earn this, but he says, perceive this.

I am glad to do this.

I love you.

And I would do nothing else to save you.

That's a different scenario, isn't it?

Captain Tom Hanks's sacrifice was done out of duty, so it inspires moral duty in private Ryan for the rest of his life.

But a sacrifice out of love, out of generosity and grace, what can that do but inspire you of love and generosity and grace?

That's the difference the gospel makes.

Did Jesus die for us out of duty?

Did he die for us out of love?

Jesus loves you and was glad to give his life for you.

To make you and me, sinners, right with God, so that we can be included by grace for no other reason but love.

Here's another way you could look at it.

We've all been watching the Olympics.

I haven't been watching the Olympics, I'm sorry.

I've caught a little bit of breakdancing.

I hear it's the last time I've done it here breakdancing on the Olympics.

Imagine a child of yours makes it to the Olympics, is gonna represent Team Canada in the 100-meter sprint or whatever it is.

And as they're getting ready to head to the track, you know, you hug your son, you hug your daughter, and you say, I love you, and then what do you say?

Go for gold.

Something along that, right?

Of course you're gonna say that.

Go for gold.

Now, your child might walk away and think at least one of two things.

Your child might walk away and think, okay, I know my parents love me, but if I don't get gold, that love is in jeopardy.

If I don't get gold, I don't know if they'll love me anymore.

That's one thing they could think away saying, but I suspect we know what our child would walk away thinking.

They would think, I want to go for gold, because I know my parents love me.

Right?

One is a sense of dutiful obligation.

Another is a sense of joyful and generous response.

The thing about the gospel, the thing the gospel and the religiosity have in common is they both say to us, go for bold, as it were.

Live into the law that God gives us, live into God's commandments.

But here's the difference between law and religiosity and the gospel.

Only the gospel frees us to succeed and to fail.

Only the gospel does both.

Religiosity says you better succeed because God's acceptance and grace and love are conditional in your performance.

Only the gospel says whether you succeed or fail, your father's love for you in Christ through the Spirit is constant and unchanging.

And that inspires us to go for gold, as it were, right?

That inspires us to live into our Father's commandments, not out of dutiful obligation, but out of loving and generous response.

What can we do but love our Heavenly Father in the way that He's so generously loved us?

That's what we see when we look at the cross.

And that's why Paul says the only thing that counts is not circumcision, not uncircumcision, not religiosity, but only faith working through love.

That's the point that Paul develops in verses 13 and 15, or 13 and 15 here.

You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, your own selfish desires, but through love, serve one another.

What else can we do but turn around and serve others in a similar way?

In the way that we can?

When we describe our church as a community-serving church, we're trying to articulate something of the love that we've received from God.

For centered in the gospel, we can't not be centered in God's love for us.

And being centered in God's love for us, we want to therefore turn around and share that love and service with others.

We want to be the sort of people who are being loved by God and turn around to serve one another for God's sake, not out of dutiful obligation, but out of joyful response.

So stand firm, Paul says.

Don't submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Being set free from religiosity gives us a comfort and an assurance we could otherwise never have.

Because we look at the cross and we recognize what God has done for us in Christ.

So stand firm in that.

We stand firm as a gospel-centered church.

We stand firm in our hearts when we ground ourselves in God's promises, and we invite the Lord, the Holy Spirit, to do that work in our hearts.

We don't have to live a burdened life of obligation, of being severed from Christ, fallen from grace.

We can look at the cross and remember our Heavenly Father loves us.

And our Savior has given Himself for us.

And there is no more secure place we can be than that.

Thank you for listening today.

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