Amen people of God let us turn now to the reading of God's Word and we'll be reading Galatians chapter 5 verses 1 through 15 and we'll be looking at verses 1 to 12 this week Lord willing verses 13 to 15 next week Galatians chapter 5 page 1239 most of the pew Bibles Once more, I'll say we're now beginning a new main section, roughly speaking, chapters 1 and 2, focused on a personal defense of the apostleship and an introduction. And then, roughly speaking, chapters 3 and 4 are the doctrine-focused, theology-heavy section. That actually includes, we're going to look at this a little bit in our sermon, that actually starts with the last handful of verses in chapter 2. Of course, there's an exception in the middle of chapter 4. He breaks out in personal pleas. Again, but roughly speaking, this is the three-part division of Galatians. And now we're in the third part. We're in the part focused on We might say ethics, to use a bigger word, or we might say personal applications or making the theology practical, bringing it back to the personal level. There's multiple ways to state it. And we see that even especially right here in 5 verse 1. So people have got, let's hear the word of God, Galatians chapter 5, beginning at verse 1. 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 accepts circumcision that he is obliged 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. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty wherever he is. But if I, brother, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish that those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. For you were 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. So far the reading, the grass withers, the flower fades, the word of God, the word of the Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the pagan world which surrounded the New Testament church was a world with many pagan works, righteousness, religions. Often the priests of the cults of ancient Rome would have strange works, which would be especially emphasized in them themselves, that they would do and that they would call others to do, and it would be through these various kinds of works and commands that you could find life. Some of the cults even included strange ceremonies of castration. So the cult of Aetus, and I don't even know if I'm pronouncing the names of these cults right. They've disappeared off the face of the earth. But the cult of Aetus, which was active in the Roman Empire, including in Rome itself at this time, would practice so-called sacral castrations on occasion. Also, the priests of Cybele in northern Galatia, so this was possibly not far away from the readers of this letter, they had an annual festival where some of them would be made eunuchs. Now, people of God, this is the way of the world. This is the way of the world. Pastor, I don't know anybody who does anything like this anymore today. What do you mean? How is this the way of the world? The way of the world is to look to self. So that takes the form in religion of self-righteousness religion. If you're anti-religion, which some people try to do, then it takes the form of self-satisfying, self-gratifying idolatry and materialism. You see, even these strange ceremonies speak to to that basic truth. The way of the world is to look to self, to either depend on self, including even strange ceremonies to save oneself, or to satisfy oneself and to seek self-pleasure, or some combination of both. But either way, it is the world that looks at self. But this is contrary to the salvation we are called to, and we are called to live in. This is contrary to the good news of life and freedom in Christ Jesus. We are called away from the slavery to the world, out of the slavery of works righteousness, out of the slavery to our own desires. We are called to stand firm in Christ. Stand firm for freedom in Christ. And we see that even so clearly in this passage. And our first point will be not slipping into slavery. And then second, to be focusing by faith. And third, to be removing the radicals. So first, not slippering into slavery. Do not slip into slavery. The apostle has just spoken about how all those who follow the faith of Abraham and the faith of Sarah, they are children of a promise like Isaac. They are free. They have freedom in Christ. Therefore, do not submit again, middle of verse one, to slavery. Now, why the word again? Aren't these Gentiles and now they're the false teachers trying to persuade them? Are false teaching Jews who are not looking to Christ? Like, where does the word again come into play here? Well, there are two ways that the apostle can use the word again. First of all, since everyone is under the law of God, Whether Jew or Gentile, everyone is liable to punishment unless they are converted. It is not as though the Gentiles are only condemned after they hear the gospel and then reject it. No, on the contrary, we are all under God and we are all under God's laws. And so to now reject the good news that they have heard would be again to slip into the slavery of the punishment of sin. The wages of sin is death. This is why they cannot slip again into a yoke of slavery. The second way that the Apostle is speaking, and I think he's speaking in both of these ways here, the second way is that the circumcision party, the Judaizers, the false teachers, they're preaching works righteousness. And remember that the pagan religions of the world, the pagan religions that the Gentiles are being called out of, were works, righteousness, religions. They looked very different on the surface, but at the heart of it, they were works, righteousness, religions, which is slavery, which is slavery. So the apostle says, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Do not fall back into the ways of the world, ways that are not based on grace. In short, to even rephrase from our introduction, to be apart from God is to either say, I will save myself or I will please myself or some combination of both. And this is all slavery because it can never satisfy, it can never save. Do not slip back into these things. To anticipate our second point, We must have Christ at the center. We must have Christ-centered religion set free by Christ. We must have Christ-centered living, a life of freedom lived for Christ. Now, since the false teachers leading the Galatians back into man-based religion, they are the circumcision party. That's the name they are given in Galatians 2.12. The apostle now uses this word circumcision again. We see it again here in verse 2 and verse 3. But we haven't seen this word for some time in the course of our series. We haven't seen it for some months. And that is because circumcision is, it stands for something bigger, but it's not really the issue. And the apostle knows that. The apostle knows that. Remember that the theologically heavy section is the last verses of chapter two through the end of chapter four. The word circumcise or circumcision is never used in that section. It's not used once. Instead, the Apostle uses a phrase such as the works of the law. Those who depend upon the works of the law, which is contrasted by those who, what, live through faith in Jesus Christ. You see, that's the more theologically precise way of speaking because that's what was really going on, isn't it? That's what was really going on. The circumcision party wants you to come to circumcision and a works righteousness of everything that goes along with it. They want you to live by what you do, being circumcised following the law. That's what's really at the heart of the matter. So in the doctrinally focused section, the apostle is careful to not use the word circumcise or circumcision. And so he instead, again, uses the phrase justified by works of the law. And he uses that phrase a handful of times. But in the beginning of the book, when he's speaking about personal matters there, he uses the word circumcise, circumcision a handful of times. And now at the end of the book, he'll use it a handful of times again. On the personally focused sections of the book, the apostle must use this term because that is the term the false teachers are using. That's the term everyone's talking about. People of God, this kind of seeing where the problem really is, that's something that plays a big part in our lives, isn't it? Isn't that something that plays a big part in our lives? Isn't the world full of those who try to twist language and twist ideas to try to take the focus away from Christ? It's important that, with the apostle, we would be able to state clearly what the matter really is. Even as we don't leave the issue there, we come back to the language of the world, so to speak, so that everyone can understand us. We come back to making it directly practical, we might say. But we must be careful in what we hear and what we say to speak about things concerning what's really going on, to speak about the heart of the matter, to speak the heart of the matter, to hear the heart of the matter. The Apostle sets a good pattern for us then here. It's something which we will all deal with in our lives, whether it's with more strictly theological things or just the twisting of words more generally. We must hear what is really going on. We must be able to express what is really going on. To know where the conflict really is, to keep our eyes then fixed on Christ by faith. And that takes us to our second point. Focusing by faith. Focusing by faith upon Jesus Christ who sets us free. It's sometimes said that among the themes of the Reformation were the theme of the five solas, that includes faith alone, that includes Christ alone, so that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. Now, how can a movement as big as the Reformation, the great revival of the Church felt around the globe, impacting the Church and impacting education in general to this very day, how can such a huge movement have have themes stated in just a few words. Isn't this a revival, a world-impacting event too big to be summarized by some short phrases? Well, on the one hand, That's partially correct to say faith alone by Christ alone is too small of a summary of what's going on in the Reformation. But on the other hand, these are central words and they get to the heart of what scripture itself so often repeats. They get to the heart of the good news of the gospel, which the Reformation so labored to bring the church back to after centuries of drifting away from it. These are central things. This is to be the theme of our lives as often as it is the theme of Scripture, which is to say again and again, by faith alone we are saved in Jesus Christ's work alone. It is the Sunday school answer, Jesus. Jesus is the one who has done it. It is where our focus must come back to again and again, even as scripture brings us back here again and again. And so the Apostle says, Christ has set us free, verse one. And he would say of those who are going astray in verse two, that you are then making Christ of no advantage. Remember how he stated it in Galatians 2 verse 21. In Galatians 2 verse 21, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. These are central matters. These are matters relating to the very foundation of salvation. And so the apostle says, We must not fall into these things. Otherwise, we would be severed from Christ, even falling from grace, the language of verse four. And in the process of falling from grace, one would show that they were never really in Christ at all. No, instead of this, we must be, verse six, in Christ. And it is in Christ where circumcision doesn't matter at all. How can we say circumcision doesn't matter at all? Well, remember from our last point, circumcision is not the heart of the matter. That's not where the conflict is really lying. And also, so then the apostle can say this, look, as long as you are focusing by faith upon Christ, it doesn't matter if you're a Jew who was circumcised on the eighth day and you're now trusting in Jesus Christ, who was always the Savior to come. or whether you're a Gentile who's never been circumcised and never needs to be circumcised. Circumcision doesn't matter. Look to Christ and then if you are or you're not, you are saved by Him. You are saved by Jesus Christ. He's the one who takes the slavery away. He's the one who takes us out of the slavery, of the bondage to sin. Slavery to the death penalty that the law puts upon us. Slavery from the demand of trying to win our salvation by our own righteousness, which we can never do because we are all sinners. Slavery to the old system, which Christ has now fulfilled, and the old ceremonies, which are now done and away. No, we do not depend upon these things. These would all be slaveries to depend upon them. We depend upon Jesus Christ. We are saved by faith alone. Now it is true that true faith is never a faith that is alone, as it has sometimes been said. And so the Apostle says, we are for freedom set free. And that we are those who are to live through the Spirit, verse four. And again, he's going to go on to explain all that that includes, doesn't it? All the fruits of the Spirit. We are those who have a true faith, which must always be, now these are the last words of verse six, only faith working through love, working through love. In other words, he's not saying, you know, since we're not saved by our own obedience, therefore go and do whatever you want. No, true faith is always going to be through the Spirit, with all the fruits of the Spirit. True faith is always going to be working by love. We're saved, the very foundation of our salvation is faith alone in Christ alone. But true faith is never alone. It always includes good works, true works. And so for those who say that James 2 is in direct contradiction with some of the writings of Paul and they say James is against Paul. Well, forget about that. Forget about that. Read Galatians 5 verse 6. And if you're not understanding what they're all getting at, then forget about James against Paul. It's Paul against Paul. But it's not. It's not James against Paul. It's not Paul against Paul. It's this is what true faith always is. True faith always is that which is working through love. It will always lead to this. It will always include this. Not as the way we are saved, but as what we are saved to do and what, since we are saved, we will do. True faith, working through love. John Stott once said it this way, quote, for the true Christian, quote, his creed is expressed in his conduct. His conduct is derived from his creed." End of quote. Again, creed being what we believe, what we say, what we know, but our conduct being what we do. True Christianity must not simply be head knowledge. Rather, Philip Riken once said it this way, quote, It is theology that comes to life. Theology that comes to life, end of quote. Yes, we are called to obey the truth, even as the Apostle will now again say in verse 7. but it's obeying the truth, it's having true faith, which is working through love to come back to verse six. True creed and right conduct must go together. Sound belief and loving behavior must go together. This is the call to a true faith focused on Christ, then worked out by love. Now, People of God, our third point, the apostle also makes it clear that we are to be removing the radicals. The apostle calls the Galatians to stand firm by faith in Christ, to do this not only by avoiding the old slavery, to do this not only by focusing on Christ, but also by removing those who would be teaching them, leading them to look away from Christ, who would actually be pulling them back into another form of slavery. "'Who has hindered you then?' the apostle says." And the word there for hindered you in the middle of verse seven, it's actually a Greek word that in the Greek Olympic games, they would use for one runner who cut out, who tripped another. And so if you were somebody who was hindering somebody, tripping someone, you were disqualified from the race if you were caught. And now, as far as I understand it, the old Greek races, there was a lot more kind of tussling and wrestling and tripping because they don't have lanes. You know, a modern track event, they have their own lanes, right? And so you don't see too many disqualifications. Everybody's hopefully running in their own lane. Well, in the Greek games, when they raced, they didn't have that. They just had pivot points, like a stake in the ground that you all turned around. So you can maybe imagine, they don't have their own lanes. There's a lot of this going on, and either people are being disqualified, or the guy who came in second place said that I should have come in first place, because I was hindered, I was tripped, I was cut out. And so it's all part of this illustration together. It's as though the apostle is saying this, if the circumcision party is going to make you drift into pagan thinking, then No, he's saying this. Keep running the race of faith well. Do not let the circumcision party, the false teachers, push you out of the track. Instead, disqualify them from the race for cutting you out so that you can get back to running the way you should be running. It's all kind of tied together, the imagery. of the illustration. And it is an illustration, isn't it? It's a word picture. Because maybe you're thinking, you know, Pastor, both the theme and the title of our sermon is Stand Firm, Stand Strong. And now we're being told to run well. How can I run and stand strong at the same time? Because they're both pictures, both illustrations. what we're called to do, to stand firm on Christ, focusing on Him, to be running well the marathon of the Christian life. They're illustrations, they're word pictures. This is what we are called to do. And a third illustration or the third picture of our text is that of Levin, a little Levin, verse 9. Levin's the whole lump. It takes only a pinch of yeast to make the whole dough rise. So the third illustration is not about rocks or races, but it's about baking. And the yeast of the false teachers is the teaching of salvation by works. If we let this foundational error creep in, An error which attacks the very essence of the good news, the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ by what he has done. If we allow this to creep in, it will permeate the whole church. It will ruin the whole church. It must be removed. The false teachers, always spoken of in the plural except for verse 10, Because like most groups, they have a ringleader. They must be removed. Any of the radicals who do not repent must be removed. They are teaching the wrong kind of persuasion. Persuasion, verse 8. People are always trying to persuade us of all kinds of things, right? There's all kinds of, well really news isn't news anymore. It's just trying to persuade you to a certain point of view. There's all kinds of advertisements. There's all kinds of things that are trying to persuade us, right? What's the right kind of persuasion? A persuasion which would be according to the way that God would teach us to think and do and what is right and wrong. But that's not what the false teachers are doing. Their persuasion is not from him who calls you. Their persuasion is not from God. Do not listen. Instead, cut out, cut out the bad yeast, lest it leaven the whole lump. So the apostle now has strong words for these false teachers. He has actually spoken stronger words before, hasn't he? Because as striking as the image of verse 12 is, it's not as strong as the language of 1 verse 8. Let him be accursed if he does not preach good news in Christ. But now, do you remember the cult of Atos, the priest of Sibyl mentioned in the introduction? It's as though the apostle is saying this. If you are the circumcision party and you're going to drift into the pagan thinking of self-righteousness apart from Christ and try to take the church down with you, then you might as well go all the way and perform even the strangest acts of the pagan priest. That's what the apostle saying. He's saying, look, if you're going to be pagans, be pagan all the way. And of course, this language of cut off would also be taking them back to Old Testament images where to be cut off is to be removed from the people of God. To be cut off is to be taken away from Christ and so there's also a connotation of that which even the leaven and the lump, anybody who did not who did not make unleavened bread at the Passover, what happened to them? They were cut off from the people of God. It's an Old Testament image for being removed from God's people. Once again, the Apostle is saying, if you go down this road of false teaching, of salvation, apart from Christ, you are pagans and you might as well be like even the most outrageous of the pagans. You might as well go all the way. You are not in Christ if you are not focusing upon Christ. Christ does not help those who help themselves. Christ gives life to those who have a faith firmly focused only on him. And so, people of God, that is where we have assurance or we do not have assurance. I do want to go back to verse 10 though, because verse 12 is this striking language, right? Startling even. And it's a reminder that the apostle will speak condemnation when it's necessary. Again, he uses even stronger language in 1 verse 8, let him be accursed. But is the apostle quick to condemn? Look at verse 10. I have confidence in the Lord. So again, not because of their own strength and faith, but because the Lord holds on to his own. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view. This is a struggling church, isn't it? There's a foundational, clearly wrong, error that strikes at the heart of the gospel, which is so severe, it must lead to condemnation and judgment. The church is clearly being persuaded by it enough that the apostle must write this letter, and he speaks at times of his great concern for them that they are drifting away, but at the end, he's not condemning them. He is slow to condemn. He is patient, isn't he? People of God, we're going to drift into errors. We're going to have disagreements, hopefully about less foundational things. We're anticipating already 13 to 15 a little bit, aren't we, when we say, let us not devour one another. Let us be slow to condemn. The condemnation does have to come sometimes. Even the struggling Galatian church, even the struggling Corinthian church, which was morally more messed up than the Galatians. Whenever we're showing that we're looking to Christ, even at all, people of God, let us bear patiently with one another. Let us be very, very slow to use those strong words of condemnation. And so, people of God, for the false teacher, and any who would go along with it, it is punishment that awaits. They will bear the penalty, end of verse 10. But for all of those who are standing firm, who are standing firm by faith, looking to Christ, there is security, even for those who are wavering. Even for those who are stumbling along their race and being tripped up, as long as we keep looking to Christ, we have all of the wondrous hope expressed in verse five, the hope of righteousness. that all of our sins and all of our shortcomings, when we come to God in the final day, here it's expressed in the future, isn't it? Why is that? Because it's looking forward to the final judgment day. All of our stumblings, all of our waverings, all of our tripping up, all of our stumblings, all of our failing to run the race as well as we should, all of our grappling, even with our fellow brothers and sisters who aren't false teachers, all of that. What happens on the final judgment day if we're standing firm by faith in Christ? He says, you are righteous because of what Christ has done. And my home is your home. I prepared the place for you. People of God, there is condemnation. but in Christ that is all removed and taken away. Let us stand firm there in that freedom now, in that freedom forever. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, let us not slip into the ways of the world Keep us from self-righteousness. Keep us from self-pleasure. Lord God, make us your people, free in you, free by faith, free by what Christ has done, and then living freely, lovingly for you, Lord God. Lord God, make this to be true. work in us and continue to work in us. In Jesus name we pray, amen.