Fighting for Your Freedom

Galatians 5:1-6

Apparently after the Lincoln pronounced the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War had ended, many slaves stayed with their masters.  They were declared free, but they continued to live as slaves.

Being set free and living in freedom are two different things

1    Freedom

Christ has set us free so that we can live free. 

We celebrate the story of what Christ has done for us.  Christian life is a life of freedom.  We took an overview of this freedom in my first sermon in the series.

We’re to stand firm in that freedom and make sure we don’t live in slavery any more.

Paul has given very few instructions so far, but here is one of them—stand firm in your freedom.

This freedom is under attack.  There are internal and external pressures, temptations, tendencies. 

We must intentionally guard and promote our freedom.  We must strive to stop striving, work at resting.  It is both demanding and effortless.  It is both a something to be received and enjoyed and a command to be obeyed.  Living in the gospel, living by faith, living in freedom is not passive.

Some of us may recognize the indicative-imperative structure.  Christ has set you free—stand firm in your freedom.

2 We remember again that the context for the Galatians Christians is that Judaizers were pressuring them to be circumcised.  Paul now says that if they give into this, Christ would be of not value to them at all.

Paul is very black and white on this matter: Christ will be all the help you need, or no help at all.  Either you rely on Him alone, trust in His sufficiency, or you don’t rely on him completely, you’re relying on yourself, and He is nothing.

The Christian life is living in the freedom of having Christ be our complete help, and to not live in the slavery of self-salvation.

Consider the boldness of what Paul is saying: if you get circumcised, everything Christ has done for you is now in vain.  You can lie, steal, commit adultery, commit murder—forgiveness and grace are available.  But if you get circumcised, it’s over.  Christ can’t help you any more.

The Gospel is not about our works, our good/bad deeds.  It’s about our faith, what we’re trusting in.

Good works are good.  The danger of getting circumcised, the danger of trying to keep God’s law is that we think our religious obedience, good works gives us some merit with God.  The danger is that we trust, we lean on, we gain confidence because of what we’ve done.  The danger of good works is that you think you’re a good person.

The Gospel says that putting our confidence in what we’ve done makes Christ worthless to us.  Self-reliance nullifies grace.  It’s about whom we trusting, not about our deeds.

3    If you’re going to go the road of the law, then you have to go all the way.  If you fail, then that very law that you’re trying to live by condemns you.

If you’re going to be a good person, then you have to be perfect.

Jesus offers to pay the bill.  But if you’re going to go with the payment plan with God, then you have to make all the payments.  Making only half the payments doesn’t do you any good.  It’s either one or the other.

Paul has said this before in 3:10

All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

So Paul has said that if we rely on the law, rely on ourselves to keep God’s law, then we are cursed, and that Christ is of not value to us at all.

When we looked at Gal 3:10 before, I paused to say, we need to honestly and humbly ask whether we are relying on Christ or on ourselves—whether we’re recipients of God’s complete salvation or under the curse of the law.

4 Paul continues.  “If we are trying to be justified by the law”—if we’re trying to look good before God by following the Bible, if we’re thinking our obedience and our good works is the answer—then we have been alienated from Christ.

Consider again the boldness of Paul’s statement:  We have been estranged from Christ, our association with Christ has been nullified.  Cut off.  Here are these Christians wanting to be circumcised (not go to strip club, not rob a bank); they want to follow the Mosaic law, and Paul says, you do that and you don’t have a relationship with Christ.  This relationship is over.

You cannot have a relationship with Christ as a righteous partner but only as a needy recipient.

You’re a patient at the hospital, receiving care from doctors and nurses [picture].  But if you say, “I can practice medicine.  I know which drugs to give myself, I can save myself.  Doctor, I’ll be partners with you,” you’re saying, “this doesn’t have to be a doctor-patient relationship; we’ll make it doctor-doctor, we’re colleagues.”  That isn’t going to work.  Either the doctor is the doctor and you are the patient, or you can leave the hospital.

The only relationship you can have with Dr. Jesus is as his patient. You are not his partner.

Either Christ is your Savior, and you are the recipient of his mercy, or you don’t have a relationship with Christ.

No one comes to Christ as a healthy person.  We all come sick.  That’s the doctor He is.

No one comes to Christ middle-class.  We all come as beggars.

Christians talk about having a relationship with Jesus.  But we should be clear, there is only one kind of a relationship with Jesus that you can have.  He is our Savior, and we are saved.  He is the Giver and we are the receivers—always.

Also, Jesus is always accepting new patients.  He has come for the sick, and He invites them to come.

“You have fallen away from grace.”

The only kind of relationship we can have with Jesus is a grace relationship. 

It’s either grace or judgment.  It’s either mercy or justice. 

To try to make payments, to earn credit means, we’re fallen away from grace.

5 A turn to the positive

Paul is saying we look forward, we await the day when we will be made completely righteous.  We look forward to the day when Christ returns and our righteousness will be revealed.  We struggle today, but Christ is coming back to take us to glory, and everything will be perfect and complete.

Last Easter we spent some time thinking about heaven.  That’s a good practice.  Christians are people who long for their homeland, who eager away the return of their beloved Savior, who set their minds on things above.  We have a forward focus.

One commentator points out how one of ministries of the Spirit is to give us a taste of our future glory, our hope.  The Spirit reveals things that make us more eager for heaven.  “We eager await through the Spirit.”

“by faith through the Spirit”—that’s a big term

I’ll only point out that Paul has repeatedly put these two together.  Living by faith and living by the Spirit are different ways of talking about the same thing. 

Last week I mentioned that the work of the Spirit is to produce faith in us.  We’ve also said that it is through faith that we receive the Holy Spirit.

6 Back in the 1^st century Galatians church, there were circumcised Jewish Christians and uncircumcised Gentile Christians, but Paul is saying this doesn’t matter.  God doesn’t make that distinction.  We need to have the right categories.

What matters is faith expressing itself through love.

In one sense, it’s not important whether someone comes to church or not, whether someone prays or not, whether someone helps the poor, gives to charity, stays sexually pure, is honest on their taxes, helps fight AIDS or helps rescue sexually exploited children.

What matters is faith expressing itself through love.  It’s about our faith.  “The righteous will live by faith.”

Last week we had said

If we do not produce good works, then our faith is dead. 

(against antinomianism, faith does not produce laziness).  Faith must produce love.  True love affirms the validity of faith.

If we do anything that does not come from faith, that work is worthless. 

(against legalism; pray, serve, help the poor, share the gospel)

It is possible to have a love that does not come from faith.  Many nonChristians are genuinely loving, but it is not from faith.  Many Christians may be kind and caring people, but it is not necessarily a kindness that comes from faith.

The key is not, “are you loving,” but do you have a “love that is the expression of faith.”  It is about faith.

Let me summarize the structure of Paul’s thought

Love                       without love we’re nothing, we’re to serve one another in love

Holy Spirit               that love is the fruit of the HS, we need to be filled with the HS

Faith                       we receive the HS by faith; some preachers have used the analogy, Faith is the channel/pipeline, the HS is the water

The love of Christ is the deep, nutritional soil where we are planted

The Holy Spirit is the sap that pours that love into our hearts

Faith is the root that we send down into the soil. [picture]

Word                      our faith is strengthened through the Word (Ro 10:16, faith comes from hearing

Promises/Christ crucified     in particular, we have the promises of God

                                          and we have the gospel, Christ crucified

In a real sense, how we read our Bibles lead to becoming a loving person.

The Word has power to strengthen our faith, and that faith expresses itself through love.  That faith leads to receiving the HS.  That faith leads to freedom, and we use that freedom to serve one another in love.

Months ago I had said that if I could give one practical application of this whole living by faith, living in the gospel, it is to meditate on God’s promises.  That has made a huge impact in my own relationship with God.

Today, let me give another version of that application.  I would like to recommend that we all memorize and meditate on 6 verses this week.  Take one a day.  See if your faith is strengthened, if you sense more empowerment of the Spirit, and if you feel there is greater generosity and love in your hearts.

Bible memorization is absolutely fundamental to spiritual formation.  If I had to—and of course I don’t have to—choose between all the disciplines of the spiritual life and take only one, I would choose Bible memorization.  I would not be a pastor of a church that did not have a program of Bible memorization in it, because Bible memorization is a fundamental way of filling our minds with what they need.  (Willard, The Great Omission, 58)

I see more and more the need for meditating on Scripture.  Scripture is essential to strengthen our faith.  And faith is at the center of Gospel Living.

And one practical step in meditation is memorization.

One week isn’t necessarily going to bring dramatic change, though it may.  But I’d like us to take a step.  We need to find ways to strength our faith through God’s word.

I don’t want us to legalistic about this =)

The focus is not on, did you memorize.  The focus is on, do you see the goodness, power, love and faithfulness of your God?  Are you being transformed by the renewing of your minds.

But I would highly recommend doing this together.  Perhaps you can hold each other accountable in your small groups.

I have one more recommendation: consider taking a Christian Education class.  We have a class on reading the OT and reading the NT.  You need to learn how to see God.  To learn how to strengthen your faith through God’s Word is an essential part of Christian living.

As we come to the communion table today, let me go back to the beginning.  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  We have been set free!

We have come to Dr. Jesus, and He has healed us.

We have a homeland in heaven, a future glory, a perfect righteousness to be revealed

We had a penalty to pay, and He has paid it completely.  No installment payments accepted.

That’s what we see here at the table.  He has paid it all.