You were born for freedom!
Galatians 5:1-12
Intro.
* Paul was certainly a man that was misunderstood.
* When it came to his teaching on the grace of God and Christian liberty, many people did not quite get the message.
* It was like he wasn’t clear on the teaching.
* I read about a man who wished he had been more specific concerning the directions he gave his wife one morning.
Joke
A while back, the battery in my beat-up VW Beetle had died because I left the lights on overnight. I was in a hurry to get to work on time, so I ran into the house to get my wife to give me a hand in starting the car.
I told her to get into our second car, a prehistoric oversized gas guzzler, and use it to push my car fast enough to start it. I pointed out to her that because the VW had an automatic transmission, it needed to be pushed at least 30 MPH for it to start. She said fine, hopped into her car, and drove off.
I sat there fuming, wondering what she could be doing. A minute passed by, and when I saw her in the rear view mirror coming at me at about 40 MPH, I realized that I should have been a bit more clear with my directions!
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* It seemed like the harder Paul tried to get people to understand his teaching, the less they understood.
* He was accused of teaching license instead of liberty.
* Some believed that what Paul meant by being free from the law was that you could live a wicked and lawless lifestyle.
* There were those that took bits and pieces of Paul’s teaching and assumed things that were not true.
But you and I know how dangerous it is to assume anything.
Joke
An enthusiastic door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman goes to the first house in his new territory. He knocks, and a really mean, tough-looking lady opens the door. Before she
has a chance to say anything, he runs inside and dumps garden soil all over the carpet.
He says, "Lady, if this vacuum cleaner don’t do wonders cleaning this up, I’ll eat every bit of it."
She turns to him with a smirk and says, "You want ketchup on that?"
The salesman says, "Why do you ask?"
She says, "We just moved in and we haven’t got the electricity turned on yet."
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* In this passage of Scripture, there are often some assumptions made that lead people down the wrong path in their interpretation of Scripture.
* Paul is going to be specific concerning the losses of a believer who puts himself back under the law and doesn’t enjoy his Christian freedom that Jesus purchased for him.
* When we go back to the law method of living our Christian life, we lose instead of gain.
I. The losses of legalism v. 1-7
Placing self under law:
A) We limit, rather than release, God’s work in our life. V. 1
* "entangled" – lit. "to hold in" means to ensnare
* "yoke of bondage" – something that binds.
* It’s not a liberated life, it’s a life of bondage.
- It doesn’t free us to become what God wants, it keeps us from becoming what He wants.
* We focus more on the external acts than the internal motivation
- We become "surface Christians" … like Pharisee who cleanses the outside of the cup but inwardly full of dead men’s bones.
* The yoke of Christ frees us; the yoke of the law burdens us.
* "therefore"- goes back to 4:31 –
- We are not children of the bondwoman, Hagar, but of the free woman Sarah.
- We are not children of the law (Hagar), but children of grace (Sarah)
* We are free; live like it!
* "be not entangled again" – don’t go backwards in your Christian life, go forward.
B) We lose the aid of the Holy Spirit in living the Christian life. V. 2
* Paul presents a hypothetical situation… the Galatians had not yet submitted to circumcision but were on the verge of doing so.
* Submitting to circumcision was equivalent to placing themselves under the law and it meant depriving themselves of ministry of the Holy Spirit.
-- They would be relying on their own efforts, their own strength to live the Christian life.
* Circumcision won’t give you love for your neighbor
- it won’t change your heart
- it won’t change you on the inside.
- it won’t stir up kindness and patience on the inside of you.
* Circumcision is not going to add to or benefit your spiritual life.
* They cut themselves off from all advantage by Christ;
* When it comes to Salvation, they will be demonstrating their dependence upon the law and the ability of the law to save… minimizing the work Jesus did on the Cross.
* Here Paul is talking about a Christian, a real believer, going back and getting circumcised so they can have a deeper relationship with God…
- Paul says when you do that, you are cutting yourself off from the aid of the Holy Spirit’s aid in living the Christian life.
C) We assume the burden of the entire legalistic system v. 3
* Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Jas 2:10-11 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. (11) For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
* If you choose the law method of salvation or sanctification you are required to keep all the law.
* God’s law is not a buffet where you walk through and pick and choose what you want to keep.
"The ethics of the Pauline epistles and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, take the place of and are an advance upon the Mosaic economy of regeneration and the objective written law. Whatever is of value for the church in the legal enactments of the Mosaic law, is found in the hortatory passages of the New Testament epistles. That is not to say, however, that the great principles of conduct underlying the statutes of the Mosaic law, are to be ignored. The Old Testament, even though superseded by the New which is specially designed for the Church, yet has great value to the latter. Still it must be used with the following two guiding principles in mind: first, it is specially adapted to the needs of the nation of Israel and for the time before the Cross, and second, it’s legal enactments where they deal with general principles of conduct that are universal and eternal in their application must never be treated as legally binding upon the believer but only as ethics to guide his conduct." K. Wuest – Word Studies In The Greek New Testament – Vol. I , p. 139
* Paul clearly taught that we are no longer under the law.
Free from the law in 3 respects:
1) free from the condemnation it imposes upon those who disobey
2) free from the law as a means of justification
3) free from obligation to render obedience to its statutes
Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
Rom 6:15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
Gal 5:18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
D) We deprive ourselves of daily grace for living v. 4
* "become of no effect" – means "to make ineffectual"
* "You have become unaffected by Christ".
You have become without effective relation to Christ.
* The idea is that the Galatian Christian by putting themselves under law, have put themselves in a place where they have ceased to be in that relation to Christ where they could derive the spiritual benefits from Him which would enable them to live a life pleasing to Him, namely, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Christ has no more effect upon them in the living of their Christian life." K. Wuest – Word Studies In The Greek New Testament – Vol. I , p. 140
Wiersbe – "Now we can better understand what Paul means by “fallen from grace” (Gal_5:4). Certainly he is not suggesting that the Galatians had “lost their salvation,” because throughout this letter he deals with them as believers. At least nine times he calls them brethren, and he also uses the pronoun we (Gal_4:28, Gal_4:31). This Paul would never do if his readers were lost. He boldly states, “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal_4:6). If his readers were unsaved, Paul could never write those words.
No, to be “fallen from grace” does not mean to lose salvation. Rather, it means “fallen out of the sphere of God’s grace.” You cannot mix grace and Law. If you decide to live in the sphere of Law, then you cannot live in the sphere of grace. The believers in Galatia had been bewitched by the false teachers (Gal_3:1) and thus were disobeying the truth. They had removed toward another gospel (Gal_1:6-9), and had turned back to the elementary things of the old religion (Gal_4:9). As a result, they had become entangled with the yoke of bondage, and this led to their present position: “fallen from grace.” And the tragedy of this fall is that they had robbed themselves of all the good things Jesus Christ could do for them. So, the believer who chooses legalism robs himself of spiritual liberty and spiritual wealth. He deliberately puts himself into bondage and bankruptcy."
* God’s grace is the desire and power to do God’s will in our lives.
- To go back to the law is to deprive ourselves of the power we need to live the Christian life.
Bible Knowledge Com. – "The issue here is not the possible loss of salvation, for “grace” is referred to not as salvation itself but as a method of salvation (cf. 2:21 where “a Law” route is mentioned as an unworkable way to come to Christ). If the Galatians accepted circumcision as necessary for salvation, they would be leaving the grace system for the Mosaic Law system. The same error is repeated today when a believer leaves a church that emphasizes salvation by grace through faith and joins one which teaches that salvation depends on repentance, confession, faith, baptism, and church membership."
v. 5-6
* Note the contrast between living by law and living by Spirit:
* We always has something to look forward to (Gal_5:5):
* One day Jesus shall return to make us like Himself in perfect righteousness.
* The Law gives no promise for perfect righteousness in the future.
* The Law prepared the way for the first coming of Christ (Gal. 3:23-4:7), but it cannot prepare the way for the second coming of Christ.
* What really matters is not the outward act of circumcision, but an inward change on the inside.
E) We slow down our spiritual growth v. 7
* Paul uses the word picture of an Olympic runner.
* "You were running well" but something happened.
* "hinder" – means "to cut in, to make an incision, to hinder"
* Here it is the picture of a runner cutting in on another and breaking his stride.
* The Judaizers had cut in and tripped up these believers.
* Now their progress was slowing,… in fact they were going the wrong way on the course.
* The Judaizers had cut them off from the only hope of going forward which was the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
* To go back to the law is to slow down spiritual growth, not speed it up.
II. The strategy of the legalist v. 7-10
A) They trip up v. 7
B) They persuade us to believe a lie v. 8
C) They attempt to infect the whole church v. 9
* like yeast spreads and permeates
D) They trouble you v. 10
… lit. – stir, agitate
- picture of unrest in the soul and spirit
- they unsettle you
III. The desire of Paul against the legalist v. 11-12
Lessons for life
1) Living a liberated life is not automatic for the Christian.
V. 1
* "Stand fast" …literally "Keep on standing firmly…"
* Paul says take a stand against legalism!
* It’s possible to be a Christian and on our way to heaven and yet live a life of bondage.
2) The inner restraint of the Holy Spirit is more effective than the outer restraint of the OT Law.
* The law says do, but offers no power.
* An external law cannot change a person on the inside… only Holy Spirit can do that.
* To abandon grace for the law is to abandon the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
* v. 1 …the metaphor of an ox. –yoke of bondage. The farmer uses a yoke to control and guide his ox because he will not willingly serve his master without it. Have you ever seen a cow come up and say, "Don’t put that yoke on me,…I want to pull this plow for you. It’s ingrained in my nature to be a plow puller!"
3) We live a higher and holier life under the Spirit than we do under the law.
* Illus. – Jesus sermon on mount…. You have heard it said, but I say unto you.
- Jesus raised the standard.
Mat 5:21-22 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: (22) But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Mat 5:27-28 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: (28) But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
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