Sermon Tone Analysis

Galatians 5:1-6

 

Dr.

Howard Hendricks, one of my mentors at Dallas Seminary, used to remind us students that, “The Bible wasn’t written to satisfy our curiosity, or to make us more intelligent sinners; (he said) it was written to change our lives.”

Life change is the ultimate goal of all biblical preaching and teaching.

It was Paul’s goal whenever he wrote an epistle to a struggling church in the 1st century.

Life change is the goal behind the great purpose statement for the Bible… “16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

This is nothing more or less than a detailed plan for a changed life.

That’s why God breathed His word to us.

We’ve been going through the book of Galatians verse by verse for several weeks now.

We started with Paul’s defense of his apostolic authority (ch 1-2), then we covered Paul’s doctrinal presentation (ch 3-4), And now we’ve finally come to the application section of Paul’s letter.

This is the part of the epistle where everything we’ve been studying is finally applied to the daily lives of believers in Jesus Christ.

This is where the rubber meets the road.

The question raised by the church at Galatia is this: /how is faith in God to be expressed?/

The Judaizers answered that question with appeals to the Law—be circumcised.

But Paul tells them the true mark of genuine faith is not adherence to a set of rules or rituals, it’s love.

Genuine faith is shown by the way Christians love one another.

It sounds like the epistles of John, doesn’t it?

But it’s the voice of the Spirit of God heard throughout the Bible saying, love one another.

We’ll see that Paul begins this application section of his epistle with an appeal to love one another.

Open your Bible to Galatians chapter 5. We’re looking at the first six verses this morning.

In honor of God and His word, let’s stand for the reading of these verses.

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.

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.

3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

[Prayer] In this practical section of Galatians, God tells His people exactly how He wants us to express our devotion to Him.

If you want the world to know that you love God and are rightly related to Him through Jesus Christ, don’t do it with a religious veneer.

Frankly, the unbelieving world doesn’t care if you or I attend church or not.

They care about the way your belief influen-ces the way you interact with them and the rest of society.

In other words, your relationship with God isn’t based on keeping certain traditions, or reading a certain translation of Scripture, or being part of a certain denomination or fellowship.

It’s not even entirely based on what you /say/ you believe—after all, the Pharisees had a great creed, but their private lives were wretched.

Verses 1-4 of chapter five teach us that…

 

*I.

What you really believe is demonstrated by the way you live* (1-4).

Listen again for the difference in these verses between /external religious protocol/ and /authentic Christian lifestyle/.

“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.

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.

3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”

Now these are powerful words that pack an emotional punch.

There were some people in Galatia who had become so /religious/, that their lives no longer resembled Christianity.

Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

I remember hearing Chuck Swindoll say, “That sounds like a Yogi Berra line.”

For what other reason would you set someone free than for freedom?

Well, it wasn’t obvious in Galatia.

They had been set free to return to bondage.

So Paul reminded them to “Stand firm and don’t let anyone burden you again with a yoke of slavery.”

For them, slavery was a return to flesh-driven religion.

The Christless effort to justify oneself was represented by the rite of circumcision.

This rite had much more meaning (or baggage) for Jewish Christians and other 1st century believers than it does for us.

It just doesn’t mean the same thing to us.

But to Christians who had been influenced by the Law of Moses, circumcision was a symbol that represented the whole Law.

So when Paul refers to “letting yourself be circumcised” he’s referring to the idea that a person could keep all the requirements of the Law by submitting to certain parts of it.

Paul said the Law is an all-or-nothing deal.

If you’re not a Christian, then by all means, live out the external rituals of your bondage—be circumcised!

But if you have been set free by Jesus Christ, then do not submit to a religious yoke of bondage.

The real question is: Are you trusting Christ… or are you really trusting in your religious rituals?

By keeping these rituals and expecting to be justified because of your works, you have alienated yourself from Christ and have actually fallen away from grace.

/Religion/ comes from a word meaning to constrain, to restrain, or to tie back.

It’s a word for bondage.

It’s the opposite of freedom… and this is what Jesus offers us.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

The allure of legalism is that it comforts our flesh to rest in its own strength—to feel we’re contributing to our own salvation in some way.

The Judaizers of Galatia want Christians to believe that we’re missing something if we don’t practice the Law with its rituals and demands.

They want us to think we can be /more/ spiritual and /more/ pleasing to God than Jesus Himself.

But that’s the error of legalism.

Nothing can make you closer to God than the merit of Jesus Christ.

And to add anything to the finished work of Christ is to subtract from the gospel.

So Paul says (v. 4), by the very act of /trying/ to be justified by the Law, you have been alienated from Christ.

That verb translated “alienated” or “severed” when followed by a preposition means /separated/ or /loosed/.

That’s how offensive Christless religion is to almighty God, it’s like the church saying, “I want a divorce from Jesus.”

The Law becomes a mistress, and the believer who trusts in the Law commits spiritual adultery against Jesus.

He says, “You’ve fallen away from grace”.

/Fallen/ comes from a verb meaning “to lose one’s grasp on something.”

What does this mean for Christians in Galatia… or America?

First of all, let me point out that the issue here is not one of security.

He’s talking to Christians about the right way to express their faith.

He’s contrasting the /way of Law/ and the /way of grace/ as a means of being justified by God.

In other words, he’s saying (as he did in chapter 3), “You foolish Galatians!

You were already saved by God’s grace.

Now /live/ in God’s grace.

Don’t try to complete with the Law what was started by grace!” 

 

Warren Wiersbe writes: 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, 31).

If they were not believers, Paul would have told them plainly that was the case (as he told the Judaizers).

Galatians was written to straying Christians who had lost their /focus/, not their salvation.

In chapter 4, he boldly states, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father’”.

If his readers were unsaved, Paul would never have written those words.

As Christians, it is possible to have a good /motive/ with a bad /method/.

The Galatians wanted to

be the most complete believers they could possibly be, but the /method/ they chose (under the Judaizer’s influence), was legalism.

To be “fallen from grace” means “fallen out of the sphere of God’s grace.”

You can’t mix grace and Law.