For Freedom Christ Has Made Us Free — Galatians 5:1–12

First letter to the Galatians chapter five, verses one to twelve.

Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Behold, I Paul, say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

Christ is become of no effect unto you.

Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.

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

For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which with worketh by love.

Ye did run well.

Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?

This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded, for he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment whosoever he be.

And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution?

Then is the offence of the cross ceased?

I would they were even cut off which trouble you.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thank you for that.

Galatians chapter five, the first twelve verses, starts with this cry, for freedom Christ has made us free.

And then there is Galatians 5, 1 to 12, where Paul speaks with the urgency of the shepherd who has seen wolves circling the flock.

This is one of those moments.

Paul is not calm here.

He is not reflective.

He is not offering a mild suggestion.

He is sounding an alarm.

And the alarm is this the freedom Christ gives can be lost not by sinning, but by trusting in ourselves or in others.

We trust only in Jesus Christ for our salvation.

And anyone who says you trust in your own actions or trust in this man or that woman is telling you an outright lie.

This is the heart of legalism.

And Paul wants the church to feel the danger of it.

In verse 1, we start with the call to stand firm.

Paul writes with the declaration of intent, of a command.

Stand fast in the liberty where Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

And that is what we've just sung.

Standing in the liberty where Christ makes us free.

But what is the yoke of bondage?

Well, in this instance, Paul is referring to the law, not the ceremonial law, not the moral law, the ceremonial law, sorry.

It's bondage because it says to do A you must do B.

To be made right with God, you must do X, Y, and Z.

And Christ removes all of that.

The word liberty here is not political freedom, nor is it personal autonomy.

It is freedom from the law as a means of earning righteousness.

Freedom from the crushing burden of trying to make ourselves acceptable to God.

Freedom from having to go on pilgrimages.

Freedom from having to light candles and say masses.

Freedom from having to confess to a priest.

Freedom from the endless treadmill of doing more, try harder, and be better.

But notice Paul's first command, stand fast.

Freedom must be guarded.

It can be surrendered, not because Christ's work is weak, but because the human heart is prone to drift back into self-reliance.

If you do Christ plus, then you have surrendered the liberty that Christ has written for you.

And I listed what Christ plus means just a few minutes ago.

Paul knew that the Galatians are being tempted to add something to Christ.

In this particular case, we're talking about circumcision.

The act of circumcision being implied through Abraham to mark you as a true Jew.

But the principle is far broader.

Circumcision is simply the symbol of a deeper issue.

And that deeper issue is this: the belief that we can contribute to our own acceptance before God.

And for me, I declare that to be pride.

And we all know what pride leads to a fall.

And Paul says it even better than I can ever say it.

He says, if you add anything to Christ, you lose Christ.

In verses 2 to 4, we see the danger of adding to Christ.

And Paul now speaks with a very solemn chority.

If ye be circumcised, Christ shall avail you nothing.

This is not about the physical act itself.

Paul circumcised Timothy for missionary reasons.

But the issue is trust.

If you're going back to the Abrahamic covenant of circumcision, have you shown you don't trust Christ, even though you claim to be Christians?

If circumcision becomes a requirement for righteousness, then Christ becomes totally unnecessary.

And if Christ is totally unnecessary, then we are still in our sins.

Because it is Christ's death and his resurrection for that blood shed on the cross that frees us from our sins, not circumcision.

Paul continues, I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to the whole law.

And this is the problem with legalism.

It's a logic problem.

If you choose as your path to righteousness, then you must keep all of it.

If you're going to trust in circumcision and the law, then you have to keep all of that, the moral law, plus all of the ceremonial law, including the sacrifices.

And it is that ceremonial law that Christ frees us from.

And if you can't keep it perfectly, then you fail.

And I declare to you, I'm a failure.

I'm a total, an objective failure.

I can't keep any of it.

And I dare to claim I have the blood of Jesus Christ to cover me for my sins.

Not that I sin to prove how much grace God has given me.

But I know that I am only simple.

I am what I am.

I claim to be nothing else.

And that means I need Christ.

Because of my own accord I will never get into the kingdom.

There is no grace with a dash of human effort.

And then Paul delivers the most sobering of statements in the New Testament, as far as I can see, at this point in time.

And he says this to the church at Galatia Christ is become of no effect unto you.

Ye are fallen from grace.

That's a terrible condemnation.

For all of us who have put our trust in the grace of God, as Paul would write to the church of Ephesus, by grace we are saved.

Because that is the gift of our gift of God, not of ourselves, lest any man should boast.

Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

My wording, not a direct quote.

And Paul is writing to the Galatians where he goes, You've fallen from grace.

From the great gift that God has given you through Jesus Christ, you have actually turned your back on God.

And you have fallen from grace because you've decided to follow the law of men.

Now, I want you to be aware of this because this seems to be a contradiction of what I've just said, and it's not.

This does not always mean losing your salvation.

It means abandoning grace as the operating principle.

It means stepping out of the realm where Christ is everything, and stepping into the realm where you must carry the weight yourself.

If you carry that weight perfectly, if you've got really broad shoulders and muscular, and you can do all of that, your salvation's fine.

But the lessons of the word of God, scripture and scripture alone, is that we are incapable of managing to keep the law and the prophets.

We can't keep the ceremonial law.

We can't keep the moral law.

We need Christ for that reason.

So, yes, it doesn't mean you lose your salvation if you can keep it all.

I can't rest on that chance.

You're a better man and woman than I am if you can rest on that chance and think you can do it all by yourself.

And these people that go around saying everybody's going to heaven, you'll not find that in the Bible.

You can show me that in scripture where it says everyone's going to heaven.

Because I've been looking at this book long enough now to know it's not there.

Legalism.

Legalism is not a stricter form of Christianity.

It's actually worse than pokery.

If anything can be worse than pokery.

Legalism is a different religion altogether.

Verses 5, the true Christian's life waiting in the Spirit.

And Paul now contrasts the legalist with the believer.

And he says, For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

And I love the fact that I'm seeing a lot of these by faith statements because we're going to be looking at the book of Hebrews round about December, and that is the book of faith.

The legalist strives.

The believer waits.

The legalist works to earn.

Look what I've done.

The believer looks at himself and goes, oh dear, and then looks up toward Christ to see what Christ has done for him.

And notice the phrase through the Spirit.

The Christian life is not lived by human effort without effort, but by divine power.

Legalism produces pride or despair, and the spirit produces Christ likeness.

And believe me, I had trouble saying that word when I was writing it as well.

What truly matters verse six.

Yeah, verse six.

Paul now gives one of the most beautiful summaries of Christian living or a beautiful summary of Christian living.

He goes, For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything.

It doesn't do anything for you.

Nor uncircumcision.

So whether you're circumcised or not circumcised, it doesn't matter.

But but faith which worketh by love.

Everything a Protestant does is by faith.

And here Paul dismantles the entire legalistic mindset.

What matters?

Now it's not ritual, that's for sure.

No ritual.

You go to a church where they do ritual, and that's not necessarily a Roman church.

The Church of England do it, the Greek churches do it, Methodist churches do ritual.

Ritual is where they do things every single time, and it's not optional.

So for example, in this church, I can change things round as I want, but I try to keep a structure.

Ritual and structure are not the same thing.

The structure we have is one we've made up over the years.

Ritual, and a lovely man called Richard Hobson, who was Ryle's chaplain, he struggled with this.

Ritual is in the Church of England sense where they used to go, when you came to say the Nicene Creed, you all have to stand to the east and face it east.

So whichever way was east in your church.

That makes sense?

So if you were to say this is south, that would be east.

Yeah?

So if I wanted to then go and say the creed, I'd have to face that way, that ritual.

Because it doesn't really matter which way you say it.

What matters is not external performance.

So you get all of these people, they go wandering into churches, don't they?

All dressed up to the nines.

All with the hats on and the coat and the suits.

And then you get the big man coming in and they parade around the church if it's a processional church wearing their garments and all the rest of it.

And they go through a big thing about reading the Bible.

So when I was in the Church of England, I used to go to St.

John the Evangelist in uh Rice Lane.

And it was a processional church in that we had a center aisle and then two side aisles.

And when it came to reading the Bible, we processed from the uh chancery where the altar, the high table was, down into where the congregation was to read the word of God.

Ritual.

It doesn't matter where you read the word of God from.

I prefer it to have you lot sitting there reading it on your knees.

That's more important.

Because what matters is that not it's read to you, but you read it for yourself.

It's all performance.

And what matters is not religious identity markers.

Paul here is referring to circumcision.

I could refer to lots of things.

Crosses round the neck, collarettes if you're in the orange, all identity markers, crucifixes.

None of that matters.

All that matters is Christ.

What Paul says is what matters is faith working through love.

And when we're talking about working through faith working through love, we are talking here about serving others as Christ served us.

And not just putting our own agenda or manipulating others to meet our needs.

I spoke some weeks back about the Christian life not is not to be first.

We're servants.

Our job is to be second, to serve people in matters of faith, to serve where we can, to serve and not to be served.

This is the crux of Paul's argument, in this, and it's it's my own view.

We do what we can.

For others.

Faith is the root of wanting to serve others.

Love of doing things for others is the fruit.

And this is the Christian life in a single phase.

And notice, I want you to notice how different this is from legalism.

Legalism says, do this, do something.

X, Y, O, Z to be accepted.

The gospel says, you are accepted just as you are, now walk in love.

Legalism says, obey to earn God's favor.

Obey the priest, obey the pastor, obey the minister, obey whoever.

The gospel says, obey because you already have God's favor in Christ.

That makes sense?

Good.

Legalism says, your righteousness depends on you.

The gospel says, your righteousness depends on Christ Himself.

And in verses 7 to 10 we get the tragedy of the Galatians, because like so many, many Christian people, they are simply being led astray.

And Paul now shifts to a pastoral lament.

He starts with a sad phrase, really.

Ye did run well, he says.

That is a you, or as we say in Niverpool, you have run well.

Who hindered you?

What stopped you from running well?

Who stopped you from running well?

The Galatians had begun their Christian life with joy.

I know most Christians that do that.

They come to Christ and they're bubbling up with it.

They don't shut up about it.

They go on and they go on and they go on.

And then something happens.

And they stop.

Or they get attacked by family and friends, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, whatever, because of their Christianity.

And they start to bring it in.

But I say to you, that is a desertion of Christ.

We are meant to go out and be bubbling over with the good news of Jesus Christ.

We are meant to go out and tell others about Jesus Christ.

Yeah, they can call it anything they want, Bible basher, Christ lover, pain in the backside, you can name it, they can call you anything you want.

But what matters is that we stand by our profession of faith and we stand for the gospel which makes us free.

And if we fail to do that, then Christ's death on that cross means little to us.

If we're afraid to upset those closest to us, then Christ's death on that cross means little to us.

It doesn't mean we go out to purposely upset people.

We're not rude about it.

But we must introduce it as often as possible, as appropriately as possible, and not be knocked back.

And we will be knocked back.

And sometimes we'll be trod underfoot.

And sometimes we'll be kicked on the floor until we feel like we can't go any further.

It's not an easy life being a Christian.

You're in warfare.

And you're in warfare with everybody.

As Christ says, He is here, he will put a sword between the father and the daughter and the son and the mother and the husband and the wife.

It happens.

Don't be afraid of that.

Standing on the promises of God.

And with the Galatians, it started that way.

But someone had stepped into their path and tripped them up.

We've all knew people like that.

And Paul wants them to feel the tragedy of this.

He had this warning, he goes, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

To put it into a more modern phrase, because we're talking about baking stuff here, one bad apple ruins a whole barrel.

Yeah, so if you have a barrel of apples, you have one bad one, you leave it in there, it will actually infect the rest of the apples that are all good.

That makes sense?

Yeah, cool.

And then I can tell you about the coffee and walnut cake I went to make today and didn't put the flour in.

That didn't work.

Anyway, um aside, it's not important.

It's an old saying.

You add something that isn't quite right, isn't quite there.

But it doesn't look bad.

And you leave it.

And it fests.

You put flour into a damp container, and the whole contents of the container will become useless.

The gospel uses the word salt, and it says, what happens if the salt's no longer salt?

Well happens, it gets damp.

It's good for nothing.

What they used to do is throw it on the floor of the temple.

Just to clean the temple, apparently.

But it's got no other use because salt is a preservative.

You make salt wet, it preserves nothing.

Legalism is like that apple or that flower that stamp or that salt that stamp.

It spreads, it infects, it multiplies, it reshapes the entire culture of a church.

A church that begins with grace suddenly becomes a church of rules.

We see that with the history of the Roman Church.

A church that begins with the Spirit can become a church of performance.

We see that with the Church of England.

A church that begins with Christ can become a church of comparison and pride.

And we read about that in so many American megachurches.

Paul is not angry because of a minor doctrinal statement, disagreement.

He is angry because the gospel itself is at stake.

Yet he remains hopeful.

He actually says, I have confidence in you through the Lord.

I have confidence in you through the Lord.

I could say the same to you.

I have confidence in you through the Lord.

Paul believes Christ will preserve his people.

I have hopes of that.

But he also warns that the ones causing trouble shall bear his judgment.

False teachers are not merely mistaken.

They are outright dangerous.

In verse eleven, he talks about the offense of the cross as we come to an end.

Paul now makes a profound statement.

Then is the offense of the cross ceased.

Now what do we mean by the cross is offensive?

The cross is offensive, and I've got three reasons.

The cross is offensive.

Not because it is violent, not because it is ancient, not because it is religious.

The cross is offensive because it tells us three very important things.

It tells us we cannot save ourselves.

It tells us we cannot contribute to our own righteousness.

And it tells us most importantly we cannot earn God's favor.

You see, and I can't stress this too much.

We, all of us, not just here, we are so full of sin that Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten Son, the second person of the Trinity, has to come down to earth, take human form, and then die on the cross because of you, because of me.

You are so loved by God, by Christ, that he did this willingly.

He didn't have to be forced, he wasn't dragged screaming to the cross.

Of his own free will and accord.

Legalism removes the offense.

It gives the human heart something to boast in.

You know what it's like.

We've built a wall.

Oh, isn't that great-looking wall?

In my case, I tried to make a case.

If it had worked, it would have been really good, but it didn't.

It gives us a sense of control, and we all like to be in control, don't we?

We all like to know what we're doing is okay.

What we're doing tomorrow, what we're going to do in the next ten minutes.

Being in control of our lives, our futures, our money, our whatever.

Legalism.

And the last one I thought was a stonker.

It allows us to feel superior.

We all know those Christians, don't we?

That look, oh, you do that, you shouldn't be doing that.

I'm a Christian, and they go around and they pick you up on all sorts of legalism.

But the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, strips all of that away.

The gospel leaves us with empty hand and a grateful heart.

And Paul's sharpest line is say for the last verse, verse 12.

Paul ends with this statement I would they were even cut off which trouble you.

This is not anger for anger's sake.

This is actually a language of a shepherd protecting his flock.

Because Paul sees the danger.

He sees the spiritual destruction that legalism brings.

He sees how it robs Christ of his glory and believers of their joy, and he speaks with a holy severity.

I wish they were cut off.

They were no more.

Standing firm in gospel freedom.

Guard your heart against legalism.

Subtle legalism.

Because that's what we tend to do nowadays.

Legalism doesn't announce itself, it creeps in quietly.

Sounds like these.

Couple of hints.

I had a good week, so God must be pleased with me.

Had that one recently.

Or I failed again, so God must be distant from me.

It's actually a Methodist thing.

I'm doing better than others.

And the last one, which is the most dangerous, is I must prove myself to God.

These aren't gospel thoughts.

These are not gospel thoughts at all.

These are the whispers of slavery.

Remember that Christ is your righteousness.

It's not your prayer life.

It's not your Bible reading.

These are all good things.

There's nothing wrong with them.

It's not your service, it's not your morality, it's not your consistency, nothing wrong with them.

But it's not your righteousness.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other things are sinking sand.

Christ and Christ alone, solace Christus.

Our acceptance before God is as secure on your worst day of your life as it is on the best day of your life.

Because it rests on Christ, not on you.

It's not about you at all.

And so we walk in the spirit, not in self-effort.

The spirit produces holiness, the spirit produces love, the spirit produces obedience, and your task is not to strive in the flesh, but to yield to the spirit.

We keep the cross central, it humbles us and frees us and silences our pride and assures us of God's love.

When the cross is central to our lives, legalism dies.

Paul's message then in this section of Galatians is not a gentle suggestion, it is a trumpet blast.

Do not surrender the freedom of Christ's purchased with his own blood.

Do not return to the yoke of bondage, and do not let anything, ritual, rule, performance, or pride replace Christ as the ground of your righteousness.

Because you are free.

You are free from the law as a means of acceptance.

You are free from the burden of self-righteousness.

You are free from the fear of not being enough.

And you are free to love.

You are free to walk in the Spirit, and you are free to rest in Christ.

And may we be a people who stand firm in that freedom, who cling to Christ and Christ alone, and who live out the beauty of faith working through love.

Amen.