Freedom’s Enemies (Galatians 5:1-12)
One morning, during an adult Sunday school class, a pastor in San Angelo, Texas, picked up the podium and walked back and forth with it. When someone asked, “What are you doing?” he replied, “Well, sometimes you just need to take a stand.” (Rebecca Livermore, San Angelo, Texas, “Lite Fare,” Christian Reader)
That’s where we’ve come this morning in our study of Galatians. We’ve talked theology through the first four chapters. & It’s become very clear in our minds that we are free from the Law; we are free from the pressure to perform in order to find acceptance with God; we are free to enjoy the unconditional love and blessing of our Lord.
We know all this in our minds, but now its time to take a stand on it in our hearts, because there are those who would try to convince us otherwise; there are those who would try to knock us down; & there are those who would try to enslave us all over again to their religious rituals and legalistic systems.
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Galatians 5, Galatians 5, where God tells us how to deal with these enemies of our freedom.
Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (NIV)
In other words, Christ set you free, so STAY FREE! DON’T LET YOURSELF BE ENSLAVED ALL OVER AGAIN. DON’T LET ANYBODY OR ANYTHING PUT YOU IN BONDAGE AGAIN.
A man robbed a bank 12 years ago (1997) and was sentenced to 70 months in a federal penitentiary. After he got out, he decided he liked prison life so much that he committed another crime, just so he could return! Danny Villegas walked inside a Federal Credit Union in Florida and told the teller he was robbing her, adding, “You might as well call the police right now.”
Villegas then sat down on a couch in the lobby and waited for police to arrive. According to Lt. Ron Wright of the South Daytona Police Department, “[Vellegas] said he wanted to rob a federal bank because he wanted to go back to a federal penitentiary.”
Villegas had worked in construction in Texas for five years, but had grown tired of the work. “Apparently,” added Wright, “he robbed a bank in Fresno, California… was sentenced to 70 months in a federal penitentiary in Phoenix, and enjoyed his time there.” (Associated Press, “Police Say Man Staged Florida Robbery to Go Back to Prison,” Houston Chronicle, 1-9-07; www.PreachingToday.com)
That sad story describes a lot of believers. Even though Christ has set them free, they want to go back to prison; they want to put themselves in bondage again; they want to try and earn God’s favor and blessing when all they have to do is enjoy it, because they already have it.
My friends, don’t do it! Christ has set you free; stay free!
STAY FREE FROM THE LAW. STAY FREE FROM ANY SCHEME THAT SAYS YOU MUST EARN GOD’S FAVOR AND BLESSING. STAY FREE FROM ANY SYSTEM THAT FORCES YOU TO CONFORM IN ORDER TO BE ACCEPTED.
Why? Because such systems rob us of any spiritual vitality. The law bankrupts us spiritually. First of all, it takes away any value Christ has for us.
Galatians 5:2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. (NIV)
When we conform to a legalistic standard, then Christ is of no benefit to us. The standard in Paul’s day was circumcision. Back then, people were saying, “You have to be circumcised in order for God to accept you.” Today, people might say, “You have to go to church every time the doors are open;” or “You have to speak in tongues, or give a tithe, or be baptized;" “You have to lose weight or dress just right in order to be on God’s good side and experience His richest blessings."
Now, there is nothing wrong with these things except when they become conditions for acceptance and favor with God. Then they become a source of legalistic bondage, which ignores the work Christ already did for us on the cross. The law takes away any value Christ has for us.
More than that, the law puts us in great debt. If we insist on keeping part of the law to find acceptance, then we have to keep the whole thing.
Galatians 5:3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. (NIV)
The law is not a buffet or smorgasbord. You cannot pick and choose the parts you like and leave the rest. If you’re going to insist on circumcision, then you better keep the other 612 commands as well. If you’re going to insist on keeping the Sabbath, then you better also keep the sacrifices. To put yourself under one part of the law, obligates you to the whole thing.
Try this next time you’re stopped by a policeman for speeding. Try saying, “Officer, I’m sorry for speeding, but I’ve never robbed anybody. I’ve never cheated on my income tax, and I’ve stopped at every stop sign in town.”
Do you think that would work to keep yourself from getting a ticket? Probably not. The police officer would only smile as he writes it up, because he knows that no amount of obedience can make up for one act of disobedience.
That’s the way the law works. The law says, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do EVERYTHING written in the book of the Law” (Gal. 3:10). If you insist on putting yourself under any part of the law, then make sure you keep the whole law. Otherwise, you are under its curse.
The best thing to do is to stay free from the law, because the law bankrupts us. It takes away any value Christ has for us. It puts us in great debt. And it alienates us from Christ and takes us out of the realm of grace.
Galatians 5:4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. (NIV)
It’s not that Christ leaves us when we seek to earn God’s favor. It’s that we leave Christ, and we drift out of the sphere of His grace. The word for “fallen away” was a nautical term in Bible days. It described ships drifting off course. Here, it speaks of believers drifting off course.
When believers seek to earn God’s favor and blessing, they drift off course from grace into legalism. They don’t lose their salvation. They just lose the enjoyment of their salvation as they work so hard for something they already have.
Don’t do it! Stay free from the law, because it will bankrupt you spiritually.
Some time ago, The Los Angeles Times reported that a 19-year-old woman had fallen asleep behind the wheel shortly after midnight and plunged through a guardrail on a freeway in East Los Angeles. Her car was left dangling by its left rear wheel.
A half a dozen motorists stopped, grabbed some rope, and tied it to the back of the woman’s car. Then they hung on until the fire trucks arrived. A ladder was extended from below to help stabilize the car while firefighters above tied the vehicle to tow trucks with cables and chains. One of the rescuers said, “Every time we would move the car, she’d yell and scream. She was in pain.”
It took almost 2½ hours for the rescuers, about 25 people in all, to secure the car and pull the woman to safety. “It was kinda funny,” L.A. County Fire Captain, Ross Marshall, recalled later. “She kept saying, ‘I’ll do it myself.’” (Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1988, as quoted in Leadership, Summer 1991, p.49)
Well, had she done it herself, she would have gotten nowhere except straight down. She had to trust her rescuers.
In the same way, we need to trust our Rescuer, Jesus Christ. If we insist on living the Christian life ourselves, if we insist on earning our way, then we get nowhere.
Madeleine L’Engle, one of the great fiction writers of the 20th Century, on a par with C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkein, once put it this way: “We live under the illusion that if we can acquire complete control, we can understand God, or we can write the great American novel. But the only way we can brush against the hem of the Lord, or hope to be part of the creative process, is to have the courage, the faith, to abandon control. For the opposite of sin is faith, and never virtue, and we live in a world which believes that self-control can make us virtuous. But that’s not how it works. (Madeleine L’Engle, “Walking on Water,” Christianity Today, Vol. 36, no. 4; www.PreachingToday.com)
Trying to keep the rules in our own strength never works to make us better people. On the contrary, it leaves us spiritually bankrupt.
On the other hand, faith enriches us! Depending on Christ makes us spiritually rich.
1st of all, it gives us the hope of future righteousness. Trusting Christ gives us the assurance that we will be like Him someday.
Galatians 5:5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. (NIV)
Notice it says we “WAIT” for righteousness; we do not “WORK” for it. By faith, we eagerly anticipate with absolute assurance that perfect righteousness that will be ours when we see Christ. 1 John 3 says, “We KNOW that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
Gordon Johnson, in one of his sermons entitled Finding Significance in Obscurity, talks about a lady who loved flowers and plants. She planted a rare vine against a stone wall near the back of her yard. She nurtured it, and it grew well. It was vigorous; it was beautiful, but it had no blossoms. She was disappointed.
Then one day, as she stood there looking at that vine with the beautiful foliage but no blossoms, her neighbor called from across the wall, asking her to come over. The lady went over to the other yard, where the neighbor said, “Thank you for planting that vine. Look at these beautiful blossoms.” You see, the vine had crept through the stone wall, and the blossoms were on the other side. The owner just hadn’t seen them yet.
And that’s the way faith is. It leaps beyond our human limitations to the other side. (Gordon Johnson, “Finding Significance in Obscurity,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 82; www.PreachingToday.com)
In fact, we won’t see all the beautiful blossoms of Christlike character in our own lives until we get to the other side. But our faith gives that hope.
The law could never give us that kind of hope. We fail so much when we try to keep the rules that we know that we will never be even half as good as Christ. But when we trust Christ and depend on HIS power, then we have the assurance that we will one day be every bit as good as Christ.
The law leaves us feeling helpless of ever reaching perfection. Faith gives us the hope of future righteousness.
And 2nd, faith gives us love in the present.
Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (NIV)
The Law is powerless! Did you see it? “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.” Keeping the law or not keeping the law contributes nothing towards our spiritual growth.
There is a city that has more than 2 million inhabitants, not one of whom drinks, smokes, dances or plays cards. Sounds like an incredibly holy place, doesn’t it? It’s not.
It’s the Greenwood Hills Cemetery in New York City. You see, refraining from certain practices is not synonymous with spirituality. (J. Dwight Pentecost, Designed to Be Like Him, p.187)
The law cannot make us righteous. It can make us critical. It can make us judgmental, especially when others fail to meet our standards. The law can even make us hypocritical, but it cannot make us holy and more loving.
Only faith can do that, only a faith which expresses itself through love. So don’t let the law bankrupt you spiritually. Instead, live your life in dependence upon the Lord and be enriched with hope for the future and love in the present.
Take a stand today against the enemies of your freedom. How? It’s simple. Put your trust in Christ and stay free from the law.
Then STAY FREE FROM THE LEGALIST AS WELL. STAY AWAY FROM ANY PREACHER THAT TELLS YOU, “GOD’S BLESSINGS ARE CONDITIONED ON SOMETHING YOU DO.” KEEP YOUR DISTANCE FROM ANY TEACHER THAT TELLS YOU, “YOU ARE NOT YET GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOD, BUT IF YOU DO SUCH-AND-SUCH, GOD WILL BLESS YOU EVEN MORE.” RUN AWAY FROM ANY SO-CALLED HOLY MAN OR WOMAN THAT TELLS YOU, “YOU HAVE TO EARN GOD’S FAVOR AND BLESSING.”
Or as Paul put it in the next verse, don’t let anyone cut in on you.
Galatians 5:7-8 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. (NIV)
God called you to a life of faith, not to a life of frustration in trying to keep some kind of a law. Somebody had tripped these new believers up¸ and Paul wants to know who it is. “Who cut in on you?” he asks.
Do you remember what happened at the Olympic marathon in Athens nearly five years ago? The runners had retraced the 2,500 year-old-route of Phidipedes, the original marathoner, and towards the end of the race, Vanderlei Lima, from Brazil, was in first place. Throngs of flag-waving spectators were cheering him on. Then, all of a sudden, an excited spectator bolted from the crowd and tackled Lima. The assailant, wearing a red, white, and green kilt, did not injure Lima, but the delay dashed Lima’s hopes for a gold medal. While he was waylaid, two other runners sped by him to win the gold and silver. (“Defrocked Priest Attacks Marathon Leader,” USA Today, 8-29-04; www.PreachingToday.com)
Well, that’s exactly what legalistic teachers do to those who are progressing so well in the Christian life. By adding all their rules and regulations, they cut in on people and slow them down. Please, don’t let it happen to you. Stay away from the legalist: don’t let them cut in on you.
And don’t let them contaminate you.
Galatians 5:9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” (NIV)
Legalistic teachers are like yeast. It only takes a little bit of their teaching, and before long it permeates the whole church. We can’t let it happen here. Stay away from the legalist. Don’t let them cut in on you. Don’t let them contaminate you.
And don’t let them confuse you.
Galatians 5:10 I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. (NIV)
God will judge the legalist who confuses people. God will judge the legalist who complicates the simple Gospel with additional rules, rituals, and regulations. That’s what the legalists in Paul’s day did. They twisted his teaching to make it sound like he was endorsing the need for circumcision in order to find acceptance with God.
Galatians 5:11 Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. (NIV)
Paul tells them, “If am preaching circumcision, why then do the legalists still persecute me. If that were the case, then they would no longer be offended by my teaching of the cross.”
You see, Paul had taught that the cross was sufficient to secure our righteousness, that the only thing necessary for us was “faith expressing itself in love” (vs.6).
Well, the legalists in Paul’s day had complicated this simple Gospel with all kinds of additional rules and regulations. & The legalists are still doing it today. There are all kinds of teachers on the radio and TV who make God’s blessings conditional upon following their particular program.
Please, don’t let them cut in on you; don’t let them contaminate you; and don’t let them confuse you.
Instead, just let them castrate themselves. Paul doesn’t mince words here. Look at vs.12
Galatians 5:12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! (NIV)
In other words, when they go to circumcise themselves, I wish the knife would slip and they end up cutting off the whole thing! In that case, according to the Law, they would be excluded from the community (Deuteronomy 23:1). You see, legalists have no place in the community of believers, so don’t let them in!
It’s the only way we can stand firm against the enemies of our freedom. If we’re going to enjoy our freedom, we must stay free from the law, and we must stay free from the legalist.
In the movie, Gettysburg, Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain (played by Jeff Daniels) gets his troops ready for one of the bloodiest battles in American history. He tells them, “There’s a few things you must know. This regiment was formed last summer in Maine. There were 1,000 of us then. There are less than 300 of us now. All of us volunteered to fight for the Union, just as you did. Some came mainly because we were bored at home…thought this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came because it was the right thing to do. And all of us have seen men die.
“This is a different kind of army. If you look back through history, you’ll see men fighting for pay, for women, for some other kind of loot. They fight for land, power, because a king leads them, or just because they like killing. But we are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free.” (Gettysburg, Turner Pictures, 1993, rated PG, written and directed by Ronald F. Maxwell, 25:15:00 to 27:50:00; www.PreachingToday.com)
For me, that’s what the church is all about. We are a different kind of army, not out to enslave people for their loot. No. We are an army out to set other men free. Let’s make sure we never forget who we are and Who’s we are.
