Galatians | Gospel Freedom (January 14th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, well let's uh get our Bibles open now to Galatians.

We're gonna be in uh Galatians chapter five, and uh as you are turning in that, uh I've got a golf shoe here.

Now I don't know if you notice me kind of smuggle this up onto the stage here, but I've got a golf shoe, and uh you know one of the questions you might ask is why, first of all, why would I have a golf shoe up here?

But uh the bigger question would be why do golfers wear golf shoes?

Right?

Like what's what's the point of all of that?

Well, well, obviously it's because of the spikes on the bottom.

Right?

You see that?

There's like these traction spikes there, and uh spikes really what they do is they they really aid in in by uh by bringing stability uh to your golf swing as you attempt to play, hopefully, uh non-terrible golf.

Right?

So you don't slip and fall and all that.

That's what golf shoes do.

They minimize slipping as you're twisting, and probably most of us here, anyways, jerking violently uh down at this dumb little golf ball.

Uh golf shoes uh help you stand firm.

All right, they help you stand firm.

Now, Galatians 5, verse 1, this is what it says.

Galatians 5:1

It says, For freedom Christ has set us free.

And then it says this stand firm, right?

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

Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Now, as the as the apostle Paul has been revealing, we've been going through this in this book, the gospel leads us as believers to a profound, a profound uh sense of freedom, a profound freedom.

And ultimately, it's freedom from what?

Well, it's freedom from the fruitless and the you know the exhausting endeavor to, you know, on our account and our own abilities to be able to, you know, somehow try and impress God through our you know our flawed moral efforts to you know somehow try and appease his wrath uh towards our towards our sin.

No, we can't do that, right?

Jesus appeased God's wrath for us through through his performance, right?

And there's incredible spiritual freedom for us when we understand that.

Right?

And then, of course, as we've been talking about and working through, when we learn, as we learn as believers, to live out of that freedom, to live out of the truth of the gospel.

Okay, but also, but also, and as we're gonna see here, as Paul shows us, it's it's quite possible for us as believers to not stand firm in that.

Right?

We we don't.

It's like spiritually we're not wearing our golf shoes, right?

We we forgot them, and so we are we are you know we're slipping and we're we're stumbling and falling uh back into slavery, back into that, you know, that performance kind of kind of mentality where we're trying to earn what's already been earned for us.

And and often it's because of uh you know, this kind of this misguided sense of fear that, oh no, God's not gonna love me unless I obey him, you know, perfectly or properly.

But of course, all of that, that's nonsense.

That's nonsense according to the the gospel.

God loves us because he is a great and loving God, not not because we live up to his standards or something.

We we can't.

Right?

And so through the gospel, we realize that there is just there's so much freedom for us.

So much freedom for our weary minds and souls.

And it's in that very thing that we must learn to stand firm.

All right, so let's get to this then.

Let's read this.

We're uh in Galatians 5 today, 5 verse 1, uh down to uh verse 15.

This is what it says.

It says, 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 keeps circumcision that he's 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 the truth?

This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

But 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.

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

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

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

For you are called the freedom, brothers.

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

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word.

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.

Let's pray.

Lord, we rejoice in the incredible freedom that is ours through Jesus Christ, Lord.

And we also recognize that our souls do not cling and do not stand in this freedom the way that we should, the way that you want us to.

And Lord, we so easily slip and fall and revert back into living as though we're slaves when we're not.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, Lord.

I pray that as we unpack the gospel bit by bit here, and as we submit ourselves before it, Lord, I pray that you would release our hearts from trying to perform for you, to try and get you to like us or love us, to try and earn salvation, to try and earn heaven.

None of that, Lord, we can do.

You have already done it for us.

And so, God, as we take a look at these things again, Lord, encourage our hearts.

Lord, we are a weary people, we are a weak people who fall into this, these kinds of mistakes over and over again.

But Lord, we are grateful for you, we are grateful for the gospel, that it continues to call us back to this freedom, Lord.

And so I pray that our church would be a church that that stands, that stands strong in our freedom, Lord.

We would be marked by that.

Lord, we pray uh all of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, and it's to the glory of Jesus we pray these things.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, I will stand firm in my gospel freedom first thing here, uh, accepting the fact that legalism doesn't help.

Uh it hurts.

Legalism hurts.

Okay, take a look at verse one again.

I know we've already looked at this, but notice something else here.

It says this, for freedom, Christ has set us free.

And it says, stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again.

Okay, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Now you'll remember this as we've been talking about this.

Remember that many of the Galatians, they had come to faith in Christ Jesus out of uh very licentious, uh immoral, pagan lifestyles, which um you know you and I might look at that and be like, yeah, of course, that is slavery, right?

That is that is slavery to sin.

It's pretty obvious, right?

So when Paul here says, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery, he's showing us, all right, he's showing us that that a legalistic, works-based, earn your own salvation mentality is just as much slavery as blatant immorality is.

They were kind of living out of this kind of anything, anything goes.

Right, all right.

Do do whatever you want, live however you want, kind of understanding this warped understanding of freedom.

That's the kind of people that they were before they came to Christ.

They were in spiritual slavery to then obviously, or they became Christians.

Right?

They they trusted in Jesus Christ through the ministry of Paul and and through the ministry of these churches in in Galatia here.

They they trusted Christ alone.

It was it was salvation by grace.

They at one point understood that.

But what was happening now?

Okay, they were immoral, they get saved, and now what was happening?

Well, they were falling back into slavery.

Only it was it was just the other end of the spectrum.

Right?

It wasn't outright immoral living.

No, rather, they had become moral conservatives.

That's what they were.

They were they were they were strict rule followers now.

They, you know, they were trusting in themselves kinds of legalists, which of course is just as much slavery as outright paganism.

Right?

Trusting in yourself and your behavior and your works and all of that, trusting in yourself as savior, that's not freedom either.

Right?

Even though uh kind of optically it kind of looks like the person's in the right spot, they're they're not, not in their hearts.

If you think about it, that's a pretty good word for us as a church, right?

I think it really is for believers all over.

I mean, we're the kind of church, we're a we're a theologically conservative kind of church, right?

We encourage holiness, we encourage like pursue the Lord hard.

We're all about like becoming being doctrinally as as pure as as possible.

We're all about you know pushing theology and and and teaching that.

And you know, we're we're all about those kinds of things, and we should be about those things.

Uh believers should be all over the place.

But listen, if we're not careful here, okay, it means that our tendency, generally speaking, for for a church like ours will be the exact same kind of slavery as the Galatians were struggling with here all these years ago.

The slavery that they had stumbled into.

It's basing our righteousness on our behavior and our performance.

Right?

God loves me because you know I have a I have a higher understanding or a better grasp on doctrine than those other Christians or those other churches uh in my town.

Right?

I'm I'm better than them.

You know, I I'm I'm better than that person because I have a better record of attendance in in small group, right?

And surely that puts me in a better standing uh with my God, you know, or all kinds of things like that, right?

Listen, if that's the case for you, what does it mean?

It means that you're not resting in Christ alone, which is the kind of freedom that Paul is encouraging us here, telling us to stand firm in.

Because we're resting in our in our in ourselves, in our moralism, in our behavior, and again, performance, all of that, which of course is no freedom at all.

It's slavery, which is which is really what legalism is.

Now, we've used the word legalism a couple of times already this morning.

We've used it lots of times throughout uh this series in Galatians.

And so, just as a kind of a recap or a reminder here, here's a definition for you from uh Tim Keller.

Okay, legalism is looking to something besides Jesus in order to be acceptable and clean before God.

Okay, you need to jot that down.

That is what legalism is.

That's like the simplest, crispest, clearest definition uh that I've uh uh I ever found.

And listen, then we easily do this, and so did the Galatians.

And that's why Paul says this here in verse 2.

Take a look.

He says, Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, okay, circumcision was a work, okay, that they thought, you know, because I'm doing this, I am earning my salvation, I am earning my standing.

God loves me because I do this act, this work.

He's saying, if you accept circumcision as a work that earns your salvation, Christ will be of what?

Of no advantage to you.

He says, I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision, again, as a means of salvation, that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

Right?

We've talked about that already.

You can't just kind of like pick and choose the laws that you want to follow.

If you if you claim to be a law follower, listen, you better obey the entire law in order to be pure, but of course, none of us can do that.

And this is what he says here, keep going.

He says, You are severed from Christ.

Serious words, 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.

He's saying here that if you claim that legalistic efforts save, and you know, sprinkling in a little Christianity or a little bit of Jesus, so to speak, uh won't help you.

Okay, it's it's not, it doesn't give you any advantage, is the word that he used there.

He said, you're you know we're we're either saved by by grace or by works.

You can't have uh both of it together.

These things are are mutually uh exclusive.

If you assert that obedience to the law saves you, then you don't actually believe that Jesus does.

No matter what you say, no matter what you feel about it, how you feel, it doesn't matter.

If you claim that it's about works, even a little bit, you don't believe that Jesus did it all.

Now these verses are speaking to those who have professed Christ with their lips, okay, and they claim to be true Christ followers, but listen, they're insisting that that legalism, that their works help.

Right?

If I add these works in, if I you know insist on circumcision, if I if I get circumcised, if I follow these, you know, these food laws and all of that, then then I'm I'm really saved, or I'm I'm better than those who don't.

And Paul's saying, if that's you, what you're really showing is that you never understood salvation by grace in the first place.

You think you're a Christ follower and you think that you're saved, but but you're really not.

You've been you've been severed from Christ.

That's a serious word, isn't it?

It literally means your salvation that you kind of claim to hold to is actually rendered useless.

That's what the word severed means.

Right?

It never took.

You you've you've fallen away from the grace that has been offered to you through Christ.

You've fallen away from it, you've rejected it.

You didn't lose your salvation.

I don't believe the Bible teaches that.

It's like you've never had it in the first place.

But true believers, he says here in verse 5, take a look at this.

He says, we ourselves eagerly await, or eagerly wait, for the hope.

The hope.

Love that word.

That that word hope there means rock solid assurance.

Rock solid assurance.

You notice how in the English, what does hope mean?

In English, hope means uh, you know, wishing something were so.

Right?

I really hope it kind of works out.

Right?

In the Greek, it actually means the exact opposite.

It's like it's like certainty.

Again, this rock solid, unshaken hope of righteousness that Paul talks about.

True believers have that.

What God has begun in us, in our salvation, he will bring to completion at the day of Christ.

All right, so so legalism, understand this, legalism is deeply, deeply hurtful in at least two ways as I see it.

First of all, it's it's deeply hurtful by causing genuine believers, all right, to be incredibly anxious inside and and and really kind of touchy when it comes to our our sin and insecure, or you know, we carry around this this feeling of guilt and and and not really sure that Jesus has really forgiven us or anything like that.

Because why?

Well, because we're not standing firm in the truth of the gospel.

We're not standing firm in that.

We we should be experiencing the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ, but we're not, because we don't really truly understand and grasp that Christ has secured it all for us.

We think it's rather unsecure, and then we've got to add to it through works.

Okay, so legalism is it's dangerous stuff for the church, it's dangerous stuff for believers, it's hurtful in that way, and then another way, it's also deeply hurtful because it gives you know religious types, all right, relying on their on their performance and relying on their work, it gives them this misguided sense that they're saved when guess what?

They're really not.

And I believe that this is a massive problem uh within the walls of the church as well, because maybe the gospel is is not proclaimed clearly, and you know, churches get away from teaching the Bible and and discipling all of that, and so you've got churches uh you know full of people who kind of think they're saved because they had some warm and fuzzy feelings one day or something like that, and and maybe they're really not.

Legalism is a problem, it's a huge problem.

So listen, if legalism doesn't help us, it actually hurts us in in damaging ways, as we've kind of looked at here.

Listen, it it's probably pretty important that that you and I understand where our legalistic tendencies are, right?

Probably pretty pretty key that we get that and we we recognize our our weak spots there.

I know that in our in our small groups this week, as we're gonna be gathering in our groups throughout the week, we're gonna be talking about this, and so just kind of giving you a little bit of a heads up about that, those of you in small groups, looking at, hey, what are the what are the legalistic tendencies of my heart?

What what what are the the areas where I'm where I'm weak in this and I tend to try and I revert uh back into this, earning my salvation.

I don't live in the freedom that Christ has secured for me.

Do you know what your tendencies are?

Do you know?

Like if they're, you know, while I I tend to find my security and my hope and a salvation, so to speak, in in my bank account.

And you know, when my bank account is is full and big, I'm feeling pretty secure in myself.

Or or my you know, my security is found in you know, in my looks and my slim waistline and my pecs and my abs and all that kind of stuff.

Or, you know, is it found in my relationships that I have?

Or is it found in some other thing?

Do you know what your areas are, your areas of weakness, your, again, your legalistic tendencies?

We need to know what those are so that we can find our strength and we can find our hope and we can find our freedom in the gospel again.

Right, as we go back to that and allow the gospel to be like medication to our souls to release us from this slavery that we find ourselves in.

Right?

We need to reject the lie that, again, which our tendency tends to be that following a bunch of rules super strictly or being rigorously more uh you know moral helps our standing in Christ.

We need to fight that because it doesn't help.

Now, if you're sitting here today and you're not a a Christ follower, you're not a Christian, maybe you you know it, you know, and you have no interest in that, or no, you want no part of it, or or or maybe you thought you were a believer or you're not sure, or whatever.

Listen, accepting the fact that that legalism and your own works and your own efforts and your own moralism doesn't help you get closer to God is key.

You have to recognize that and understand that.

Listen, turn from your own efforts.

I implore you, your own efforts to perfect yourself and to complete yourself and find ultimate meaning and hope in other things in this world.

Listen, all of all of that it falls short.

It will never fulfill your soul, it will never fulfill what your your deepest longings are.

Instead, I would encourage you to turn to Jesus Christ and the salvation that He purchased for you on the cross through his blood.

Forgiveness is available to you.

It is given to you as a gift, it is available only through him, you will not find it.

Any other way.

It is only found through the gospel.

That is the freedom that you long for, the freedom that you will find deep in your soul.

Turn to him.

Trust him as Savior now.

Don't wait for me to be done talking.

Don't wait for this sermon to end.

Don't wait for the service to end.

Turn to Christ right now.

Admit your sinfulness.

Cry out to him as Lord.

Submit your life to him.

I will follow you forever, Lord.

Be my Savior.

Forgive my sin.

I am not awesome.

You are.

You admit that in your heart.

You're saved.

And you can begin to experience the freedom that Paul is calling us to stand in here today.

How awesome is that?

Right, here's the second thing.

I will stand firm in my gospel freedom, resisting all influences towards slavery.

Get tough.

Okay, get tough.

Verse 7, look at this.

He says, You were running well.

Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

Okay, this persuasion is not from him who calls you.

He's like, Jesus isn't calling you to be more legalistic.

And he gives kind of this little illustration.

He says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Okay, so just like how a little bit of yeast affects the whole loaf of bread.

It works its way through the whole loaf of bread.

So a little bit of works mixed in with grace ruins salvation, right?

It ruins your freedom.

But then he says this, I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view.

Why does he say that?

He says that because he believes that they're true uh true Christ followers.

He believes that they're genuine believers and they just need to be reminded of the gospel again.

Okay, and then look at this.

Check out how intense this is, what he says.

He says, and the one who is troubling you, he's talking about the false teachers now, he's not sure exactly who this is.

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

He says, but if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I being persecuted?

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

And then look at this.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

Right.

Do I need to like explain what he's saying there?

Right?

A little uncomfortable?

Maybe just a bit?

Like, can he can he say that?

Like, I don't know.

It's in the Bible.

Right?

It's in there.

Right?

We teach it.

Right?

If if circumcision is a little bit of a cut.

Do I need to finish that sentence?

Gritty! Right?

It really is.

Right?

This is gritty to say the least.

Now, what's the takeaway for us here?

The takeaway for us is that Paul refuses to put up with these false teachers and their garbage that they are peddling.

Right?

He's like, enough of this nonsense.

He loves this church far too much to see them go down this road.

Right?

He's getting tough.

And he's speaking in very stark terms here to wake them up, just as we read that, and we're like, oh my word, right?

That's exactly what the original readers would have thought as they were reading this.

He's getting tough here, and you and I need to get tough as well when it comes to our slavery and our legalism and all of that.

And listen, I think a huge part of this is learning to recognize, if you haven't already, that the entire world's message, the entire system that all of us are a part of in this world in North America, on the earth, period, is some form of legalism or another.

We are bathing in it constantly.

Do you see it?

I mean, do you see it everywhere?

Are you, you know, do you do you smell it?

I mean, for example, take them take the music that we listen to on the radio.

Right?

That is legalism coming at you, left, right, and center.

It's talking about how every song, how you're gonna find a you know, a salvation of sorts through what?

Through finding someone to be with, through a sexual relationship, through through what?

Through having the fancy car and the big house and having all the things and the stuff and the money and all of it.

Where you find all of that, you're you're gonna be saved, you're gonna find meaning and hope and and purpose, you're gonna be completed as a person, you're gonna find true happiness.

All of that is their version of salvation.

Right?

TV, social media, it's all saying the same thing.

But hey, none of us really watch TV or or have social media, right?

No, of course.

It's in front of us constantly.

We go home and we're like plop down on the couch and and we're watching stuff.

We've we've got our phones in front of our faces constantly.

If you think that's that that's having zero effect on you, you're a fool.

Right?

It's this it's this message of earn it, earn it, earn it.

You need this.

This will complete you.

We have to see it.

24-7.

I mean, we've talked about these examples from time to time.

Some of them are are quite obvious once you begin to see it.

But that whole works-based system, I mean, it runs even deeper in our society, and and some of it is some of it, listen, it's not even a bad thing.

Okay, take take school or the workforce, for example.

Right?

With both of them, what are they based on?

Merit.

Right?

You you work hard.

We've got teachers here in this room.

You want your students to work hard, don't you?

Work hard because then they'll do what?

They'll they'll earn good grades.

They'll earn that, they'll they'll they'll get honors, they'll you know, they'll get the degrees if they if they put in the hard work.

Okay, that's a good thing.

Right at work, if you you know, if you if you put in all the extra effort and and and you stay late and and you work hard and you start at the bottom, you can you can work your way up the ladder and you can earn the promotion and the raise and and and get yourself that corner office.

Listen, I'm I'm not even like against all of that per se at all.

We should work really hard.

In fact, Christians should be leading the charge in all of this.

We should be an incredible example to the world out there.

Right?

We need to understand it's not bad, but but it's imperative that we realize that in God's economy, salvation and our freedom does not operate that way.

It is not something that you earn.

It's not something that you work for.

It is given.

It is given, it has been earned for you.

We merely receive it.

We receive it.

You're starting to see how naturally that that just doesn't compute to our hearts and the way that we're kind of wired in the system that we live in.

It's all about earning, it's all about proving yourself.

And the gospel is just completely, it's the opposite.

You can't earn it.

Christ has done it all.

You don't work for it, and you certainly don't deserve it.

So, as Paul urges the Galatian churches here to resist these influences that unfortunately had permeated these churches here, these influences of legalism that that lead to the spiritual slavery when we should be experiencing freedom.

Listen, as he is urging them to resist this, we need to as well.

We absolutely need to.

So listen, get tough about it.

Get tough.

You see, Paul getting tough.

He's pulling no punches, he's not afraid to get gritty.

And so the the call for us here is not don't be soft.

Don't be soft on these things.

Have some grit.

They may be thinking, well, how?

How?

Well, we've got some things here on the screen, and you can write these down if you want.

Here's how to get tough against legalistic influences.

Okay, three ways.

Three ways.

First of all, tell someone exactly what your issues are and enlist their help.

Listen, I think so many, so many of us, we have this desire to be known, but then we don't actually talk to people about who we really are.

We don't actually share what our struggles really are.

We don't do this.

We're we're afraid of rejection.

We we we fear that they're not gonna understand.

And so listen, we kind of stay paralyzed in these prisons of uh of fear, and and because of that, we don't really admit where we're weak and all of this, and and we don't enlist people's help.

And and you know, the Christian life is supposed to be all about community and actually knowing each other and helping each other as we grow and as we stumble and trip and fall forward towards greater Christ-likeness in his strength and all of that.

Listen, you cannot do that by yourself.

You can't do it.

You have to enlist the help of some people.

I'm not saying that you can tell every single person that you know every single thing that's going on in your life.

But you need to tell somebody.

Your spouse needs to know what's really going on, but I would say there'd be people outside of your spouse that need to know.

Here's where I'm weak, here's where I really struggle, here's where my legalistic tendencies lie.

Why?

So you can listen for help so they can pray for you, so that they can encourage you as you get discouraged.

Hey, you ever struggle with discouragement in your walk with the Lord?

Like every single one of us, probably today, right, on our way to church, we need people to help us.

We need people to push us along and cheerlead us and pray for us.

Hey, listen, at times when we're struggling, we need the rebuke.

We need the we need the reprimand, we need the correction.

You want to get tough against legalistic influences.

Admit where you're legalistic.

Tell somebody.

Get some help.

Okay, that's huge.

Here's a second one.

Take an extended break from what you think you need.

Take an extended break.

Maybe for you, I kind of gave briefly the example of the phone.

Right?

We're not addicted to those at all, are we?

Right?

And maybe for you, you're like, every waking second I get, I check Facebook.

Right?

And you're like, refreshing, refreshing.

How many likes on this picture?

You know, any friend requests, you know, what looking at pictures and people statuses and all of that, and the second you feel like this, I need to have this.

Right?

That has become something your soul thinks it needs, but guess what?

It actually doesn't.

Take a break from it.

You ever taken a break from social media?

This is just one example, of course.

You notice it's kind of hard at first, but as you do it, what happens?

You realize, like, wow, my life's way better without this junk.

Right?

It's amazing.

But no, I need my phone.

No, you don't.

No, you don't.

Maybe something for you, it's different.

Maybe it's like this this spending habit.

Maybe it's you got like a new hairstyle, new haircut, like every month, and you know, you're finding your identity and your looks, and take a break from doing all of that.

But but I won't look perfect.

Oh well.

You're gonna realize here that you don't need it as much as you thought.

Get tough.

Get tough with what's owning your soul.

Get tough with that legalism.

Here's a third one.

Commit to deeper, intentional, and focused prayer about it.

Pray.

Well, didn't you already mention prayer?

Yeah, I mentioned that you need other people to pray for you, but guess what?

It's not just up to them to pray for you, it's up to you to pray.

You're like, wait a second, prayer doesn't seem like it's it's really getting tough.

Oh, yes, it is.

You ever tried to pray?

It's hard.

Right?

People who persevere in prayer are tough.

Those people are our true warriors.

They've battled through discouragement, they've battled through the dullness and at times the boringness of all of it and the discouragement and the doubt until they see fruit.

Right?

Battle in prayer, commit to these things.

I'm I'm gonna go deeper into this.

I'm I'm not just gonna pray surfacy prayers, you know, about.

I'm about to get on a pedestal here.

I'm just gonna keep going.

Okay, commit to this.

Pray for what's really going on.

Get tough against these legalistic influences.

You begin to do this, you're gonna start to experience the freedom that you have in Jesus Christ.

Okay, last thing.

Last thing.

I will stand firm in my gospel freedom.

Responding to my freedom by loving and not destroying.

Loving, not destroying.

Verse 13, take a look at that.

He says this for you are called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another.

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word.

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.

You and I are called to freedom.

It says that right there in verse 13.

The world would define freedom as what?

The world defines freedom as the ability to do whatever you want.

Right?

Make any decisions that you want.

It's it's it's a hundred percent autonomy, it's it's zero restriction, throw caution to the winds, you know, self-governance, it's all of that.

Whereas, whereas the gospel, how does it picture freedom?

It paints the picture that freedom is is doing what God wants.

That's freedom.

That's where you're gonna find true freedom and joy.

Okay, being free in Christ through the gospel means that I'm I'm free from the demands of the law to save myself, which is slavery, of course, because, well, for one, it's impossible, right?

It's impossible to do that.

So on one hand, we're free from that tyranny.

The gospel kind of tells us that.

And then on the other hand, we're also free from that from that libertine mentality, that that do whatever I want, that that no boundaries, no restrictions whatsoever, kind of brand of freedom, so to speak, which is which is also slavery.

Why is it slavery?

Why is do whatever you want, no restriction, slavery?

Because it always leads to sin.

It always leads to your pride getting you into trouble.

It always leads to ultimately to pain and and addictions that that sooner or later you're gonna find yourself powerless to overcome and pull yourself out of.

Okay, that whole do whatever you want, that is freedom.

That is a lie.

That is a lie, it's not freedom at all.

The gospel tells us that we're free from all of it.

We're free from all of it.

Free to live by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Listen, we're gonna talk more about that next week in just a classic and amazing section of Galatians here.

But the Spirit gives us, listen, gives us the power, and it drives the motivation of our hearts to now obey Christ and experience the freedom of doing what he wants.

Right?

That's an amazing and profound thing.

Wish we had more time to unpack that today, and we're gonna get into it a little bit more next week, of course.

Okay, but that's why it says here through through love, serve one another.

And then it says, for the the whole law is fulfilled in one word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Okay, genuine Christ followers experience freedom by doing what the Holy Spirit motivates and empowers us to do.

And ultimately, what does the Holy Spirit want us to do?

If you boil the law right down, what does it want us to do?

Love God and love neighbor.

That's what it's gonna want, that's what you're gonna want to do as you experience your freedom.

This is the freedom that you and I are called to.

So, a question, you know, in the context of loving other people well, and I I hope that's kind of the drive of your heart.

I hope that's what you want our church to be, and I listen, I hope that's what you want your heart to be all about as well.

So the question is, how do I know if my love for others is motivated by gospel freedom?

Because I think sometimes love, you know, and the and the brand of love that we kind of submit ourselves to or employ is actually not biblical love.

Right?

It's kind of this surfacey version of love that sort of looks good on the on the outside, but oftentimes it can be selfish, it can be really not what the Bible is all about.

So again, how do I know if if my love is is genuine?

How do I know if my love for other people is being fueled by the freedom I have in the gospel?

Well, here's here's the first thing.

I'm gracious.

Hey, I'm gracious, truly I'm gracious, even towards those who are different.

Have you ever noticed that as believers and as the church, we're kind of like, I don't know, terrible at this?

You notice that we're kind of brutal at being gracious to each other?

We're so harsh.

We're so hard on each other.

And we're hard on this church, we're hard on that church, we're hard on the person in our small group, we're hard on our spouse, we're hard on our kids, we're hard on ourselves, we're hard on other people.

We're not gracious at all.

What's going on behind that?

I don't know, maybe it's that we don't really understand the grace of God towards us.

Maybe, maybe that's part of it.

I think it is.

Right?

The gospel hasn't truly taken root.

And so we're not gracious, but we don't appreciate the grace of God towards me.

When we understand, listen, I'm broken, I'm I'm flawed, I'm I'm a mess, and and the Lord is working on me, and I'm a work in progress, and this isn't happening overnight, and all of that, it allows us to be gracious with other people when they let us down, and when they fail, and where when when they're not where they should to be.

Because guess what?

Neither am I.

We're all brutal.

Right?

You strip it right down, none of us have arrived at jack squat.

So we need to be gracious with each other.

As the Lord is gracious with us.

Okay, that's the first one.

I'm gracious.

Second one, I'm patient.

Okay, I'm patient.

Even towards those who are different.

Okay, patience is closely related to grace, I think.

Another area we where we kind of are, I don't know, weak, a little bit weak, and and and we're impatient, and we want to see things, you know, get great, and we want to see things.

I mean, one of the one of the common themes that I heard very early on in the days of our church as we were starting, we're not that old, again, we're not even three years old yet, but but I remember people like critiquing us because our community, you know, isn't the exact same as you know the church that they just came from, which is like 25 or 30 years old.

Right?

There was a real sense of like impatience.

We we need to get there.

We're not we're not there yet.

I'm like, yeah, it's gonna take time, but you can't compare us to you know another church that's had you know time to season and grow and and mature and all of that.

Listen, we're we're impatient.

Right?

But as we understand the gospel and as we recognize the freedom that we have in Christ, we can be we can be patient with him, we can be patient with her, we can be patient with that other group that doesn't quite get it, maybe the way that the Lord is helping us to get it.

And I guarantee that there are areas of the Christian life, maybe, that we don't quite understand and have fully grasped that somebody else maybe does.

So we need them to be patient with us just as much as we need to be patient with them.

And it's always with the people that are different than us, right?

You notice that?

They're younger, they you know, they're about this, I'm about that.

And so we have a harder time kind of relating to people who are different.

We need to let allow all of that to just crumble.

Okay?

We can't be easily frustrated, we can't be impatient.

Here's the third one.

I'm committed.

I'm committed.

You can probably guess the last part of that.

Even towards those who are different.

Right?

Gospel freedom truly taking root in your heart will be will be evidenced in the fact that you are committed through loving one another, as our verses get to here.

Right?

You're you're committed to this person.

Yeah, they're uh they're a work in progress, but I I'm not just gonna quit on this person because they haven't figured it out yet.

I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna give up on people.

I'm not gonna bail on this relationship just because they haven't got to where I wish they should be or even where Christ wants them to be.

Listen, if you truly love someone, it's not just gonna be a bunch of like lovey dovey feelings about how great that person is.

It's gonna be evidenced by a deep commitment to each other.

We want to see our church get strong.

This is where it's gonna happen.

It's a deep commitment.

Listen, I've seen so many examples of you being gracious, I've seen so many examples of you being patient with each other and being patient with me and being committed to one another.

Let me encourage you and spur you on to more of that as we experience the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ.

Listen, church, let's let's stand firm in our freedom.

Not waffling, not slipping, not stumbling, falling, tripping, all of that.

No, let's stand firm.

We're done with this legalism.

Okay, done with slavery, done with biting and devouring and consuming one another, as this verse says.

But rather, what?

Responding out of the gospel freedom that we have by loving each other.

Right?

That's the church that I want to see.

That's the church that I want to be a part of.

That's the kind of church that I wanna.

Play a role in seeing established.

Do you want that?

I hope that you do.

I'm praying for myself in this because I need it, and I'm praying for you as well.

And I think that's what we need to do right now.

We need to pray.

All right, let's commit these things to the Lord.

Let's cry out to Him.

We need help in all of this.

You know, as we see these scriptures and we walk through them, you start to realize, wow, like the standard is like up here and I am way down here.

Praise the Lord that He doesn't just like boot us out of His kingdom because of that.

By His grace, He works in us.

We need Him.

Let's pray to Him now.

Lord, we thank you for this passage.

We thank you for the freedom that we have.

We thank you for the cross.

We thank you for the resurrection, Lord.

Lord, we thank you that we don't have to remain stuck in sin.

Our sins can be forgiven and we can live in light of all of that.

So, Lord, help our hearts that again, as we've mentioned so many times, are just slow to grasp this.

Our minds are slow to grasp this.

Lord, we recognize that we are just helpless and needy children at the end of the day that cannot survive without our loving Father stepping in and helping us.

God, there's no pride in us, there's no sense of, ah, if I, you know, I just need to get it.

No, it's Lord, you have to do it.

Lord, would you please help us?

Lord, would you please be merciful to us, your church, Lord?

And would you grow us as individuals and unite us to yourself as your bride?

Lord, would you do all of these things and more?

We pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.