Galatians chapter 5 We're looking
at verses 5 through verse 10 If I had a title, I guess I would
call this the believers race or a race hindered a race hindered
The Apostle says, for we, true believers in Christ, we, through
the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. You did run well. Who did hinder
you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh
not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump. I have confidence in you through
the Lord that you will be none otherwise minded. But he that
troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be." Now
Paul, if I would remind us, the context here is Paul's encouragement
to the saints. His encouragement after setting
forth what true liberty is. That justification is by the
faith of Christ, and we have received the justification of
God by faith in Christ without the law. Therefore, he says,
stand fast, hold fast, believer. Hold fast. shore up the faith
of the saints. He exhorts us to stand fast,
hold fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, which
is plainly expressed in the Gospel. That we who are in Christ, the
city of refuge, should remain in Christ by faith and not be
moved. Not be moved from the liberty
that we have. Which liberty is what? The freedom
from the guilt of sin. You should not be moved from
that liberty. You have that liberty because Christ bore your sins
in His own body on the tree. We should not be moved from holding
fast that we are free from the dominion of sin. Isn't this a
wonderful thought? You are free from the dominion
of sin. How do you know this? Because you believe. Whereas
sin had dominion where you could not believe. Now you are free
from sin's dominion and are able to believe. You're able to love
Christ and His saints. And we, though we are not yet
at liberty of the presence of sin, This is the promise of God
that soon we shall leave this body. We shall leave this body
in the earth. We shall soon be free from the
presence of our sin. This old man, this body of death. And so all who stand fast in
Christ's liberty wherewith He alone hath made us free. Listen. We cannot then return to the
Law. We will not return. We cannot
and will not return to the Law in any part for our salvation. But what happens when one does? Paul says this in verses 2 and
3, he says, look, if you return to the Law, Christ doesn't profit
you anything. In fact, if you return to the
Law, you are a debtor to the whole Law. And then the effects of Christ,
which is righteousness, justification, sanctification, redemption, those
are the effects of Christ. He said those effects of Christ
have no effect on you, whosoever you be. You are fallen from grace,
and we know that that's not one losing his salvation, but rather
one is being exposed for what he really is, a pretender. And so now then in verses four
and five, he shows the effect of Christ. I'm sorry, verse five,
he shows the effect of Christ. The effect of Christ on those
who do believe. He says, for we. Who is this
we? Sons of liberty. Those who are
born again of the Spirit. For we. He's contrasting us with
those who would go back under the law. Christ is of no profit
to them. Christ is of no value to them.
They are a debtor to the whole law. But we. Here's an opposite
view of us. This is us. We're something different. We threw the Spirit. We threw
the Spirit. That is, we have the Spirit.
If we through the Spirit, Paul is saying we have the Spirit
of God. It wasn't this part of God's
covenant promise to you and me. He says this in Ezekiel 37, he
said, I will put my Spirit in you and you shall live. Now you know the context of that
is Ezekiel 37 when He raised those dead dry bones to life. He preached the Word to those
dead bones and God the Spirit moved on them and gave them life. He says, even so, this is a picture
of how God saves His people. Even so, I will put My Spirit
in you and you shall live. this is the effect of christ
on us look what is the effect of christ on those who follow
the law he's of none effect to them what effect does he have
on you all he had much effect on you or we through the spirit
we have the spirit of life by his blood and righteous This
is the purpose result of God to give you life, to give you
faith. And now, we who merited only
death, we who had no right to heaven, now we are made by the
effect of Christ through the Spirit to profit, to gain. Don't you know you gain everything? That you are an heir of everything. Don't you know that? Don't you
see that? You are an heir of God. Joint heir with Jesus Christ. Therefore, whatever Christ has,
you have. Whatever He has, He freely gives
you. You who are born again, you profit,
you gain from Him. And how was this given to us?
Was it by merit? No, it was freely given to us. freely what was given to you
the righteousness of God don't you know you have that you who
believe you have the righteousness of God matter of fact the scripture
says you are made the righteousness of God in you have the perfect atonement
of Christ his blood now is sprinkled on your hearts You have atonement
from your sins. Which one? All of them? This is the gift of Christ through
the Spirit. A new nature. You have the new
birth given to you. And so now we, unlike the legalists,
what do we do through the Spirit? We through who have the Spirit,
what do we do? Through the Spirit, through the
strength of the Spirit, through the power of the Holy Spirit,
we, as opposed to the legalists, we wait for the hope of righteousness. The legalist doesn't wait for
righteousness, he's busy trying to get righteousness. We instead
wait for it to be manifest. We have it, but you can't yet
see it, can you? We have it, how? By faith. He
said we through the Spirit wait for it. How do we wait for it?
We wait for it by faith. trusting, resting, believing,
trusting always on Jesus Christ until He appears. Again, the legalist is not waiting.
He's busy. He's working, trying to gather
up all His righteousness. And so in verse 6, Paul sets
forth that faith, which is the gift of grace, works. He said that in verse 6, he said,
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love. Now, he says neither circumcision,
what's that? Keeping of the law, nor someone
who doesn't keep the law. What does that avail in Christ? Nothing. There's a man over there,
and he's trying to keep the law. He's moral. He's a good citizen. He gets out and votes. He does
everything well. He's a model of his community. And there's an old drunkard.
There's a stoner. There's somebody out there, and
he's worthless. He's full of iniquity and sin. How do they differ? They don't. They're both sinners. They're
both sinners. So then does the guy that's moral
have any more grounds to merit Christ than the guy that isn't
moral? Nope. Nope. No merit in either one of them. No merit. So he's saying, look,
keeping the law or don't keeping the law, what does that matter?
That doesn't avail you anything for Christ. In Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter.
Circumcision availeth nothing nor uncircumcision. What is he
saying? That this has nothing to do with salvation. Keeping
the law or not keeping the law? It doesn't have anything to do
with salvation. What's salvation? Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is in Jesus Christ alone. Now, if the moral man were to
come to Christ, he'd have to leave his morality. If the sinful
man were to come to Christ, he'd have to leave his sin. Why? Because
neither availed by anything they've ever done. All they've done is
sin. And the only hope for them is
in Christ. So salvation comes only by faith. That's the whole point of this.
whole point of this is salvation comes by faith and that's a twofold
meaning it comes by the faith of Christ that's how salvation
is accomplished that's how salvation is purchased that's how salvation
is merited by the faith of Jesus Christ but how salvation is received
is by faith in Jesus Christ which is an active positive response
to the hearing of the gospel. You who believe, is that not
true of you? You've heard of His faith. And by grace and the
power of the Spirit, you have responded to that. Just as those
bones responded. They rattled, didn't they? They
came together by the power of God. Sinew came upon them. Life
and breath came into them by the Spirit of God. That's how
we were born of God. And faith was always, is always
the result of the new birth, always. We hear the gospel and by the
power of the Holy Spirit we believe. And then we who have true faith, we that have true faith, do we
return then to the law? No, true faith doesn't respond
or return to the law. Paul says, true faith worketh,
not by law, but by love. True faith, which worketh by
love. I want you to know this, believer,
true faith works. There's no doubt about it. You
who are alive, are you breathing? that's a that's most surely you're
breathing if you're alive you're breathing you you must work really
hard you work real hard it comes out it just comes out and goes
in i didn't even notice how many times i was breathing today no
it just does and so does faith faith works in us faith moves
us our lord jesus christ said that
you and me we are the light of the world A city that is set
upon a hill cannot be hid, neither do men light a candle and put
it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that
are in the house. Let your light so shine before
men, listen, that they may see your good works, and glorify
your Father which is in heaven. An old man will see your good
works, Nor will your faith be a witness to the world but by
an outward obedience." Tonight, you're exhibiting this right
now and you may not even know it. Just being here, you are
testifying to the world where the gospel is. You testify to
them as to where the gospel is preached, where Christ meets
with His people. You testify of this by faithful
obedience to His Word. Forsake not the assembling of
yourselves together as a matter of some is. And by this, you
are not only condemning the world, but you are also exhorting and
encouraging your brethren. Do you know that? You didn't
come here thinking, well, man, I need to be encouraging my brethren,
so I'm going to come in here and sit down so I can encourage
them. No, you just did it. You did
it because you need it. You need to hear of Christ. You
need to know of your standing again. And by doing that, you're
working all this while not even knowing it. Isn't that what the
sheep said? Jesus said, you know, when I
was hungry, you fed me. When I was naked, you clothed
me. When I was sick, you imprisoned me. When did we do any of that? We don't remember one time we've
done any of that. And yet you did it, didn't you?
Yes, faith truly does work. And by this, men see. How can
men hear our gospel except we declare it to them? We are the
light of the world. We should be not hid under a
bushel. We should be set on a candlestick
so as to give light to all those around us. And so the Apostle plainly then
describes the chosen and redeemed and called when he said that
Christ who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from
all our iniquity and purify to Himself a peculiar people And
what is this peculiarity? Zealous of good works. Zealous
of good works. Now then, there will be many
who profess to know God, profess to rest in Christ, whose faith
is dead, being absent of good works. You know what James said?
James said this. He said, faith without works is what? What is faith without works?
dead, being alone. You see, faith always works.
It always works. But there are many on the flip
side of this who profess to know Christ, yet they are devoid of
any good works, even though they do many good works. Paul says this in Titus 1 16
he said they profess these men profess they know God but in
their works you see these people do works these people do a lot
of works yet in their very works they deny him now how's that
they deny him by trying to use their works to merit his faith
Now you as believers, you that do good works, do we use any
of these works as merit? Do we claim any of these works
we have ever done as merit before God? As somehow making us more
acceptable to God? No. But everyone who does, listen,
Paul says they are in every good work reprobate. And what he said
of the goats, those goats, he said, you that work iniquity,
depart from me, I never knew you. And when I was hungry, you
didn't feed me. When I was naked, you didn't
clothe me. When I was sick in prison, you didn't visit me.
And what they say, Lord, when did we not do those things? They
remembered a whole bunch they had done. They confronted him
with that. They said, no, we did a lot.
Now why aren't you letting us in? And he said, because you
work iniquity. because all your work for repair here it is the great difference
that our motive for works is what merit or love faith work it behold in the greatness of god
love isn't that the motivation is not my love My love doesn't
motivate me to do good work. If I look at my love or your
love, and I'm ashamed of my love. Aren't you? How little is our
love? How small is our love? How small
is our faith at its best state? So that doesn't move me. That
causes me to cower in shame. But it is the love of God that
moves me. It is His eternal love for me. It is His immutable love for
me. His changeless love for me that
moves me to love and to serve. He loved me before the foundation
of the world and in love predestinated me to the adoption of sons by
the humiliation of His own sons. And in love, my Savior came into
the world in our flesh and suffered, suffered the wrath of God for
our sins. And in love, He finished the
work and sat down on the throne of glory, moving all things for
the salvation and good of us. I like what Spurgeon said. He
said this, the royal crown he has placed upon the head of his
church, appointing her a kingdom and calling her sons a royal
priesthood, a generation of king and priest." Listen, he uncrowned
himself that we might have a coronation of glory. He would not sit upon his own
throne until he had procured a place for us. Is that not love? He would not sit down until He
had you a place. He uncrowned Himself so that
you might be crowned. What amazing love. The love of
Christ. And in love. While we were yet sinners. Isn't
that when He loved you? How often do we wait for people
to get better to love them? That's our nature, isn't it?
Wait for somebody to get better. When he gets better and he straightens
up and all, Christ didn't wait for you to get better. He loved
you. Even while you were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. And being crowned with glory
and honor, so all his sons are crowned. Isn't it true when the
head is crowned, the whole body is crowned? What love! What mercy! And in
love the Holy Spirit set His eyes upon us, even in our wicked
frame, and in an act of sovereign mercy and power raised us from
the dead. In love He sent His Word in power
and gave us faith. And by faith we have now received
Christ as all our salvation, righteousness, sanctification,
and wisdom. And through the Spirit we now
wait for the manifestation of that. This is the love that moves us. Isn't it? Faith worketh by love.
Whose love? His love. By whose power? His power. By whose grace? His grace. By whose Spirit? His Spirit! Don't you see it's
all of Him? And so now in verse 7, the Apostle
Paul makes it clear that many had been affected by these false
teachers. Listen, he said, you did run
well. Who did hinder you that you should
not obey the truth? These false preachers had come
in and they started well. This church of Galatia started
well, but they were now hindered. They were now hindered, bewitched,
duped, dazzled by legalists. And I want you to notice what
Paul's desire here is. When he said, you did run well.
And who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? What
was Paul's desire in saying that? His desire was a work of love.
Remember, faith worketh by love. He was working by love. He wanted
them to know that his actions, his words here, were filled with
love for these people and desire, not for their ruin, but for their
return. He desired their return. And
even though He had doubted many times of their salvation. How
many times did He say this? In chapter 3 and verse 4, He
said this, He said, You have suffered so many things in vain,
if it yet be in vain. He's saying, look, I'm having
problems considering that maybe your salvation is vain. In chapter
4 and verse 11, He even doubts them here. He says, I'm afraid
of you. Lest I bestowed my labor in vain in verse twenty he says
that he doubts again He said I desire to be present with you
and change my voice. I stand in doubt of you Yet even
in all this doubt love overruled and he said this in verse 11
of chapter 5 He said look what he called him and I what? Brethren,
he still called him brethren. He still had hope for them Paul knowing the proneness of
our flesh, the proneness even of a true believer to stray. Paul knowing that we are often
weak and often allured away. He in hopes here that these were
true brethren, that they have just gone astray. He was hoping
this. desiring that this be the case. And behold the greatness of God's
salvation in this, that no legalist could truly destroy a true believer.
That's what Paul had hope in. He said, look, if these are true
believers, I know this, I should love them and desire their return
because I know Christ will bring them back. They belong to Him. The greatness
of God's salvation, Paul was confident of this. He knew That
they could not be forever lost. That no one could pluck them
from the hands of Christ if they were true saints. And so then
I want us to call ourselves here to remembrance of ourselves.
How often are we weak? How often are we so foolish? How often do we take our eyes
off of Christ? and fall into all kinds of troubles
and difficulties and even sins. Such failures, such temptations
and sins cause our hearts to be troubled and we even begin
to doubt our own standing before God. Now, which of us have not
done that? So, as Paul's desiring here to
bring these in, he's remembering our own ability, our own nature
to sin. even true believers. And so then, one who is under
grace looks only to Christ, and seeing that there is no goodness
in ourselves, how then could we ever look down at anyone else? Therefore, we, knowing our own
proneness to fall, are moved like Paul instead of
to condemn, but rather to help. That's what Paul's motive here
is, to help. We could learn a lot from that. He's here to help raise up the
fallen. So Paul, later in this text,
Look at chapter 6 and verse 1 and he tells us how that we should
do this because this is how he's performing this work of restoration
to these brethren. He says, Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, you that are spiritual, restore such in
one. Now you know what that word restore
is. It's like one would set a broken bone. Now how would you like
your bones to be set? If your bone was broken, how
would you like the doctor to come in and set that bone? You suppose that he should just
grab it and twist it in there? No, you would hope that he would
set it gently, with kindness and love. And that's what Paul
is doing here. He's trying to reset the bone
that's been broken. But he's doing it with love and
compassion. He's doing it with a heart of
mercy. praying that these that he's
speaking to are Christ's. And so, how often do we fall
in our faith and love and service to Christ? If we're honest, we
confess we're altogether unprofitable. Yet our hope is not in ourselves,
is it? It's in Christ. Our life is hid
with Christ in God. In Him I have redemption. In
Him I have righteousness and peace. So now behold the fallen
brethren and see their wounds. See the
wounds of their hearts. See the fallen brethren who seeks
to be restored. See his scars of his sin laid
bare. While our sins may be hidden,
his sin is laid bare. his sin is laid open for all
to see how they should we receive how she will receive our fallen
bread who seeks to be restored i'll tell you even as christ
received that's how we're now listen there there's been a lot
of uh... thought of this this week we know the pastor that caused
great harm to many of God's churches. Many of God's people preaching
a horrible message. Horrible message, adding to the
work of Christ. What a horrible thing. And yet,
if that man repented, if that man were to turn, how should
we receive him? Well, we should receive him as
Christ received us. That should never be brought
up again. if he were to come repentant. And that's what Paul
was hoping for these, that they would turn from this, that they
would see this and that they would turn. His love for them
was great. And so then, in this verse 7,
Paul likens the believer's life to a race. He said, you did run
well. You did run this race well. Believers, our life is like a
race. And how do we begin this race? We begin this race in one
way, by faith in Christ. By faith in Christ. Now, was
this a burden? Or was this liberating? It was liberating, wasn't it?
The burden rolled off of our shoulders like Christian as he
came to the cross. The burden fell. He couldn't
get that burden off for anything until he came to the cross, until
he came to Christ and saw that the guilt was gone and the burden
fell. And listen, believers, we run
this race because there's only one prize. What's his prize? Christ. Christ is the prize. Nowadays, they got 12 prizes,
don't they? Everybody gets a prize when you
run a race. Everybody wins, right? No, in
this race, there's only one winner. Only one winner. There's only
one prize. Jesus Christ, eternal life, peace
with God. That's the prize. And all of
us who are believers When we set out on this race of faith,
we desire to have that prize, don't we? Paul said, I desire
to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which
is of the law. Therefore I press toward the
mark of the high calling of God. This race is a race that we must
press. We must press. We must continue. We must endure. And listen, we
are surrounded by traps on every side. This race is surrounded
by traps and temptations at every step, at every stage of this
life. And I tell you, these Galatian believers, they fell into a snare.
They fell into a trap. These legalists came in and said,
the law, the law, and they fell into it. And Paul said, look, you ran
this race well, but what happened? You were hindered. What hindered
you? I'll tell you what hindered them.
They took their eyes off Christ. You're running this race right
now. And the only way to avoid the
snares is not by trying to pick up the snares. It's not looking
for traps. It's looking to Christ. Now what
Paul says, he says this, Wherefore we have a great cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily
beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us. How, Paul? Looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith. That's how we run this
race. It is not a carnal race. The
legalists, they're running a carnal race. It's all about what they
can do in the flesh to please God. We are running a spiritual
race, and it is only by faith we're going to finish this race.
It's how we started, it's how we now endure, and it's how we
shall end this race. And what runner have you ever
seen pick up weights along the way? Have you ever seen a race
like that? Where they're running and running
and all of a sudden they look over there and there's some weights
and they just start throwing them on themselves. That's exactly what
we do, isn't it? We take these burdens and we
put them on ourselves. I love this saying, self-inflicted
wounds are the most painful. And the more we put on our weight
on ourselves, the more we are prone to the
sin that easily besets us. What sin is that? Unbelief. Unbelief. And so we're to continue to look
to Jesus Christ so as not to be hindered. Hindered in this
race. That word hindered means to go
backwards. You know that? Be drawn backwards. I think it's
kind of ironic they call it progressive sanctification when Paul says
you're just going backwards, you're not progressing, you're
regressing. To be under the law is regressing,
it's not progressing. And he said, who did not hinder
you? He said, this persuasion is not of him that calleth. I
want you to know that law, religion, is not of God. those who preach
sanctification justification by the law that is not of god
that's what paul said in a look verse eight this persuades is
not a vehicle this is the doctrine of devils and he said this to warn them
a little levin levin at the whole lot now i want you to understand
this because some people will say well is just one They're
just circumcision. Paul, they're just being foolish.
We're not really paying attention to them. He said, listen, if
you let it stand and you don't nip it in the bud, it's going
to affect the whole lump. He said, you put a little leaven
in a whole lump, it's going to sour the whole thing. And if you let it continue, it
will fester. We all admire Luther, right?
We all admire what God used that man for and what we admire his
works. But yet what did his denomination
cling to? Did he cling to his doctrine
or his stance on law? It clung to the leaven, didn't
it? And now that denomination is
useless. It doesn't have any worth. And so we'll be here. if we let
this leaven continue. He said a little leaven leavened
the whole lump. But this is something Paul had. He said, I have confidence
in you through the Lord. Paul said,
I'm not confident in you. I just know this. If you are
the Lord's, I have confidence that He'll draw you back. i have
confidence and so as we look around to our fallen brethren
those that have gone away those who seem to if they are christ
i want you to be comforted he will bring i'm confident through
the law i'm confident that through the lord that you will be not
otherwise i know i know that all who belong
to christ will continue with christ that they may have fallen
They may have been hindered in their race, but I know this,
if they are Christ, He will draw them back." That's comforting,
isn't it? It's a consolation. And so, as
we see our brothers fall, what are we to do? We're to, like
Paul, pursue them in love with the truth. Not coddle them in
their deception, but pursue them by love. so that they might come back
and run the race of faith so that they might receive the prize
but all who will not continue paul's point about this he said
look you're gonna bear the judge you who try to continue merit
your favor with god you will bear i pray god would give us grace to work by love, to stand fast
in Christ and His liberty and not be moved. And then when it's all done and
we're in glory, who gets all of the praise? You ran that race. Did you get
any praise for that? No, it wasn't in your strength,
was it? It was in His. And we all give praise to God
for it. May God use this and teach us. Let's stand and be
dismissed in prayer.