Galatians 5. Let's just read down through
verse 15. 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 obligated 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 await 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, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still
preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case,
the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who
unsettle you would emasculate themselves. For you who are 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." Okay. As we
move into this, of course, we see the word for there in verse
1 of chapter 5. It is a continuation of what
Paul is teaching. Now, of course, we know this,
but it's important to remember and keep on our mind that These
verse numbers and headings are not part of Paul's letters. They
are not there. They are a contemporary, in a
sense, a contemporary addition so that we might find things
easier. But because we live in a systematized
way of thinking, it's easy for us to think, oh, this is a new
thought. It's not a new thought. It's
a continuation of the teaching that's already been done. We
are not slaves. We are free. We are free in the
Lord Jesus. We are sons and daughters of
promise. We are not, we have been begotten by the Spirit of
God, so we are not dead and enslaved by the law, which is what Hagar
and Ishmael is a picture of, the law. We are free by grace. 4. Freedom Christ has set us
free. Stand firm therefore. This is
an exhortation. This is a commandment. And do
not submit again to a yoke of slavery. So the whole form of
this writing is to look with circumcision in view. But it's
not just the act of circumcision as we'll see in just a moment.
It's the idea of obedience to the law. No matter what it was,
whether it be a prayer, whether it be this, whether it be that,
you know, I didn't realize it because I really don't follow
these things, but I guess Lent is upon us and It baffles me
that evangelical Protestants practice Lent. And I've looked
through the ages of all of the historical traditions of that.
But if you look in Scripture, when we see that there was a
time where Jews themselves would mark their foreheads with ash
and tear their clothes and fast and things of that nature, Jesus
rebukes them and says, wash your face and tidy up your clothes
so that no one knows you're fasting. Do not let it be seen by your
brothers, for if you do, it is your only reward. So we don't
do these spiritual things thinking that they honor God or do something
great for God. That's why we have to be so careful
that we don't take a spiritualized or mystical approach to the sacraments
or to the ordinances as we would call them as Baptists. We don't
take a firm hand on certain types of songs that are sung in a certain
way or a certain language. Now, of course, we do scrutinize
and discriminate based on what the context is and the content
of what we learn and sing. I'm not saying that, but we don't
think that there's a sound or an organ that's more spiritual
than a piano or certain types of things. And yet, in the same
way, we are also very careful to understand that some people
have a conscience that where I might go rock-heavy at home
and worship, it's not for the assembly. And so we are careful
in that. But oftentimes we're careful
on one side, but we're not careful on the other, are we? We want
to get too uber-formal. We want to get extremely ritualistic
and think, this is the honorable way to worship the Lord. Well,
circumcision is just one of the ways in which Jews looked at
obedience. There were many laws, many precepts,
many active applications of the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue,
how this Sabbath law was obeyed, how honoring parents were to
be fulfilled, how worshiping God was supposed to be understood,
and the list goes on and on. But Paul said, for the sake of
freedom, Christ has set us free. In other words, he set us free
unto freedom. It is freedom. We are free. But
then we see down here, we don't use our freedom for the flesh
as an opportunity. This first 13, we don't use our
freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. And there's twofold
as we close out tonight. That'll be the last thing we
talk about is what it means to give opportunity to the flesh.
But we are free. So then we stand firm in the
freedom of Christ. That means we stand firm in our
confession of hope in the Lord Jesus. We stand firm in the knowledge
of grace. We stand firm in the position
of being justified before the Father through the finished work
of Christ. We stand firm by faith alone. We do not go and find anything
else to rake into our pile. I just sort of get the picture
sometimes of raking leaves. I rake leaves a lot as a child
and sometimes I have to rake leaves a lot as an adult. You can rake leaves, and you
can rake leaves, and you can rake leaves, but there's always
one of several things that can get in the way of that. Wind
can make leaf raking a mess, and so what you have to do then
is you just sort of come in and rake leaves back. You have to
rake it back up in this pile. And then dogs can run through
leaves and children can run through leaves and mess up what you're
doing. But I sort of envision like a leaf pile or a dirt pile
is how we are freed from the job or we gathered up all of
the dust or the dirt to put into the dustpan, but we never want
to pick it up. We just want to let ourselves sit in the midst
of the pile. And when some of that stuff gets
swept away from us, it would be like going back to the laws,
like having the tendency to, no, no, no, no, I want this trash
pile. I want to keep my leaves, I want to keep my leaf pile piled
up to my knees. I want to stand in this. Well,
I have a friend who was dealing with leaves and let them sit
for too long and then his hand was bitten by a serpent. Right
there on James Street. Because snakes like leaves. But
we do that. And that's what circumcision
is. That's what the law does. When we just, we're free, but
we want to continue to make something shackle us. To make this ritual
as though it were honoring to the Lord, but really it's something
that trips us up. Doesn't Paul use that language
in Hebrews? To take off that which entangles
us and trips us. To run freely as we look to the
one who has gone before us, the founder and the perfecter of
our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. So we are not to submit again
to the yoke of slavery. We're not to consider the precepts
of the law and obedience to the law as a justifying or edifying
power. Because then Paul begins to explain
why. He's already done it, but he's given a couple of things
to think about, two things specifically. He says, look, I, Paul, say to
you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage
to you. All right, let me tell you what that's not saying. That
doesn't mean if somebody who reads this had already been scared
and took circumcision that they were condemned. It means that
if you accept circumcision as a viable and true and logical
assurance, as a safety net, that you don't have faith in Jesus
alone, so he's worthless to you. If there's anything you add to
salvation, anything you add to the hope of your salvation, anything
you add to the promise of your salvation, that is what you believe
in. That is what you believe in.
And so that's what Paul is saying there. Don't accept circumcision
as a viable safety net. Don't accept circumcision or
anything in that nature, anything of the law, any act of obedience
that would cause you to feel more confident in your flesh
because you're not to use your freedom as an opportunity for
the flesh. So don't use your freedom as an opportunity to
be sure. Somebody recently asked this
question to me, what if we're wrong about the gospel? And it's an easy answer. It's
impossible. To be wrong about the gospel.
When the word of God is your God. By the Holy Spirit. Now, the argument of that is
that everyone in their tradition. Claims divine illumination. But beloved, even when you cannot
see, you cannot debate the syntax and what is taught. And the crazy
thing is, what is clearly, clearly obvious in the language of letters
like this, letters like Romans, the teachings of Jesus throughout
the Gospels, the ministry of the Apostles through the Acts,
What is clear and obvious is hidden from the goats, hidden
from those who have yet to believe. They're hidden. And so what is
even true and that they would even concede and say, OK, I see
that, but it's always the but the but is the circumcision.
It's always something else or it's not the but it's the what
about. Well, I see that, but what about this? What about that?
What about the other? Or the absurd, ridiculous hypotheticals? So what you're
saying is that so-and-so could do this and do that and do that
and be a Christian. Where do we have to go in Scripture
in order to get people to see the truth of the gospel clearly. Are we teaching it wrong? Are
we reading it out of context? Are we just so narrow-minded
that we can't think? And so we're just not speaking
rightly? No, there's nothing that we can
do differently. We must read the Bible, expose
the Bible, deal with what the Bible teaches concerning the
gospel. And God and God alone will open
the eyes for the man or the woman to see it. And so when we see
people continually to hold on to all of these law-abiding peripherals,
we must not lose heart. We must not lose heart. And we
must remember that Christ will bring His sheep to the truth.
Paul even says that here, doesn't he? I trust in the Lord that
you'll see it because you are His. So if we look to anything
to add, Christ is of no advantage because Christ testifies concerning
Himself that He is our propitiation, that He is our righteousness,
that He is our sanctification, that He is the new and better
way, that He is our Redeemer. So if there's anything else that
can redeem, then Christ is worthless. That's what he's saying there.
Then he says again, I testify again to every man who accepts
circumcision. Not only is Christ worthless
because he can't save you, Christ cannot save you if you look to
the law. Because Christ fulfilled it. But I testify to every man who
accepts circumcision that he's obligated to keep the whole law.
So not only is it that it can't save you, but you are now bound
to it as a slave and are no longer free. So that if you are considering
that circumcision or any other demonstration or visual aid that
would gain some type of assurance for you, then you must keep all
of them, all of them. 600 plus laws. You must keep them completely.
You must keep them perfectly. Having never disobeyed any of
them, having never broken any of them, because we see how Jesus
teaches that if we obey in all, but fail in one, we've disobeyed
them all. The law is a display of Christ,
the perfect and righteous one. It is not the manner in which
we can live It is condemnation. It is always death. So if we
accept circumcision, he says, we must accept the whole law,
every part. And if we do, you are severed
from Christ. You can't have both. If the law
is the shadow of Christ, If the showbread is the shadow of Christ,
if the Holy of Holies is the shadow of Christ, if the temple
is the shadow of Christ, if the pillars are shadow of Christ,
if all of these things are the shadow of Christ, if the phylacteries
that they wore were shadows of Christ, the Word that became
flesh, then how is it that we can have both? The shadow and
the truth. How can we have the type and
the antitype at the same time? How can we be alive and dead?
How can we be black and white? How can we be beast or human?
It's not possible. We must see that the gospel is
not found in the law. The good news is not there. The
good news has never been there. The good news is that Christ
is our righteousness. So verse 4, if you're severed
from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have
fallen from grace. If you look to the law, there
is no grace because there is no grace when it comes to the
law. You shall be bound to be judged
by the law and your keeping of it, or you shall be bound to
be judged by the mercy of God through Jesus Christ who died
in your place. Which is it? Now if we were to
remember all of the dialogues that Jesus had specifically in
the Gospel of John, we would see that there are many times
where Jesus would show conditions. But in the same context, he would
show these conditions like, you cannot believe because you are
not my sheep. And then he would express himself
in such a way, he would say, the reason that you don't live
is because you don't believe. Why don't you look at the signs
that I do? That is a rebuke. It's not a promise of life through
seeing the signs. It's not a promise of life to
the Pharisees because they tithe when he says, just keep the whole
law. It's not a promise or a choice of the rich young ruler when
he says, you must be perfect. And then the man says, well,
I've kept them all. It's not an opportunity for him to get
righteous. It's an opportunity for him to see that he's not. And it still has no effect on
people, does it? Until they're born again. There is no grace where there
is law abiding. Because if we are going to measure
ourselves by it, we are going to be judged according to it.
Beloved, it is good news that by grace we have been saved.
For, verse 5, through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly
wait for the hope of righteousness. That's a beautiful phrase. By
faith, not by works, not by law, not by striving, not by zeal,
not by inward affections, not by expressions, not by ministry,
not by application, not by anything at all do we wait with hope of
righteousness except by faith in the One who is our righteousness.
This is it. We eagerly await through the
Spirit by faith for the hope of righteousness. The further
explanation there is that in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working
through love. It explains that. Faith working
through love. So here Paul says that faith
works. What does it do? It hopes in
what? The revealed righteousness of
God through Christ alone. That's what it does. Working
faith sees the love of God for us in Jesus through the declaration
by the Spirit of God we see, we hold fast, we have hope of
righteousness in Christ. Because whether you're circumcised
or not, as verse six has told us, it means nothing. It counts
for nothing. And we know Paul was not one
to say it was an abomination to be circumcised. He circumcised
Timothy. Why? To save him the headache. Yeah, you have the freedom to
eat without washing your hands, but when you go into a home,
And they wash their hands, just wash your hands. When you go into a home and they're
sitting at the table and you got nasty, dirty feet, or not,
they don't sit at the table, but they sit, you know, with
their feet near the table, just wash your feet. Does it have
anything to do with God's holiness? No, it has everything to do with
politeness. If there are people in the South
who just absolutely get upside down and crazy because you pulled
out wine at the dinner table, relax, offer them some, and remember
not to indulge in front of them again until you've had a chance
to share with them the truth. For the sake of what we eat or
drink, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. That's
what Paul says in Romans 14. But it doesn't make us any better. He says, you were running well,
you were running well, you were living well, you were going well,
you were carrying in your heart the faith that is in Christ,
you believed. And he asked rhetorically, who
hindered you from obeying the truth? I love this phrase because
it gives clear indication of many times when we hear about
the obedience of faith. that it's in direct contrast
to the rebuke that Paul's giving here when the flesh goes, oh,
I've got to obey something. I've got to do something with
my flesh that warrants something or secures something before the
Lord, or exposes something. Obeying the truth is believing
in Christ alone. Obeying the truth is faith alone,
period, in Christ alone, period. There is nothing else to do in
regards to our justification, in regards to our sanctification,
in regards to our hope. And then he says clearly where
this does not come from. Look at the negative there in
verse eight. This persuasion This persuasion that has gotten
you to not obey the truth, and that means you're not believing
in Christ alone right now by considering circumcision as a
viable safety net, this persuasion is not from Him who calls you.
It's not from Him who calls you. Then who is it from? It's from
the Father of lies, who always masquerades as an angel of light. We need to recognize, beloved,
if you read Thessalonians and you see how the Lord has really
pressed upon the idea and in 2 Corinthians that God himself
not just permits and purposes but empowers and sends deception
to people. And the scripture is clear that
when we think, this is part of the deception of the enemy, we
see all this heinous stuff, we see all this dark, demonic stuff,
we get all up in arms about a Halloween, or a sci-fi, or a cult, or the mark
of a beast, when the mark of the beast is denying Christ. Satan is in the business of looking
so much like God, so much like truth, so much like Christ, that
as Paul says it, it would deceive even the elect if it were possible. That is the operation of the
enemy, which is in accordance to the judgment of God. That's
hard for us to put our minds around in our culture. So this
persuasion is not from the Lord Jesus. It is not from God the
Spirit. It is not from God the Father.
It is from the father of lies. It is from the devil, the adversary,
the enemy. His name is Lucifer. And then he says a little leaven
leavens the whole lump. You got a little bacteria that
can make everything bad. You got a little virus that can
spread quickly. You got a little yeast that can
just make everything ruined. And all it takes is one. All
it takes is one who comes in the midst of a people and begins
to try to mold and manipulate people and form them into what
they want them to be because in their mind it looks more godly
and then it's not good enough when it happens. And though then
it's got to be more, all the while thinking in a deprecating
way of what we call a humble brag. I'm not there yet, but
you're not as close as I am. And it's disturbing. Who puts
that in the hearts of people? The devil. The enemy. It only takes But I have confidence,
Paul says, in the Lord that you'll take no other view. I have confidence. How does he say that? Just like
he told the Thessalonians, he who began a good work in you
will see it to the day of the Lord. He'll continue to work in you.
He'll hold you. Just like we see to the letter
of the Ephesians, it says the Spirit of God seals us for the
day of redemption. We've already heard that we are heirs and offsprings
and sons and daughters of promise. We're going to be secure. Those
who are given to the Son, He will never cast away. They cannot
be snatched out of His hand. He has saved us. He has purchased
us with His blood. There is no return program. There
is no refund. There is no exchange. There is
no trading system. This is not an open draft. He
doesn't bargain with the enemy. And none of His sheep will be
lost. None of them. None of us will love Him. But
yet all of us can probably find a time in our life, it may have
even been today, where we probably banged our head against our proverbial
soul and thought, man, why can't I get this stuff in my mind out
of my mind? Why can't I get these feelings
out of my life? Why can't I get these disciplines
a little bit more focused for the sake of Christ? And all the
while we're working to that end, you know what we're not doing?
Praising Him for His glorious grace. You know what else we're
not doing? Serving our brothers and sisters. You know what else
we're not doing? Looking at the face of Christ and growing in
the knowledge of grace. We are focused on ourselves,
not our Savior. And it is a trick of the enemy.
It is a deceptive thing. And it is so easy to preach it.
It is so easy. to fill every seat in this room,
to have to get all the chairs from downstairs and put out another
hundred chairs. It is so easy to guilt people into an oppressiveness,
thinking that they are serving the Lord and doing their duty,
thus they are okay. When the image that we see is just like cows who are in that
little chute, or sheep And it's taken them exactly where they
think they're supposed to be going because the people who
fed them their entire lives and groomed them and watered them,
surely they're going to feed them now, but they're putting
them in that little chute and they're staying in the boundaries
of that little gate and they're going straight into that little
stall and then they cut their throats. Led to a slaughter. That's what the flesh will do
for us. By the Lord, I have confidence
you will take no other view. You will believe the gospel that
you have received and you will put away. Why did the Lord send
the letter to the Galatians? Because we ourselves need this
letter. We need to be reminded that that
war for the sake of our flesh, our flesh is free in Christ alone
by grace. And beloved, as long as we're
fighting the battle in our flesh for the sake of our flesh, we're
not trusting in grace. And it just seems counterintuitive. But Paul is so clear on what
he wishes would happen to these people. Some people find offense
at this, and it's rather offensive. It's not a rated G statement. I know, and I'm confident of
the Lord, you'll take no other view, and the one who is troubling
you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. What's the penalty? Condemnation. Making provision
for the flesh. Serving the flesh. Faithfulness
of the flesh. Confidence in the flesh. Condemnation. Condemnation. Whoever he is,
he's going to pay. But if I, look at this argument
now. But if I, brothers, still preach
circumcision, in other words, you know the gospel I preach,
the gospel that I've already affirmed, the gospel that I've
given my reputation, that was given to me by God, I didn't
go learn it from a store or from a school or from a book. I didn't
repeat, become a ditto head of other people's doctrine. I denied
everything that I'd ever been taught about God and the Bible
and the truth and theology. This is what Paul is saying.
I let it all go. I counted it as nothing. And
then Christ himself met me, and then I was set free in the Lord
Jesus by the Spirit of God. I was born again, and I saw and
I knew, and the Spirit of God taught me these things. And I
affirmed not only this gospel was the same gospel as the other
apostles, but they affirmed also that it was the same gospel as
theirs, the one that I preached. So why am I being persecuted
if I still preach circumcision? Now that could probably make
us think, well, I bet some people were saying, no, no, no, Paul
taught us this. Isn't that the way to get people to listen to
what we have to say that's off the cuff, that's a little bit
outside the lines, that's not so strong in the center, on the
foundation of the gospel of grace? It's easy for us to get someone
else to hear. If we have a little bit of credibility,
another name to drop, another famous pastor, Another pastor that might be
credible or a historical figure. Oh, you know, so-and-so believed
this. I don't care what so-and-so believed, Paul says. That's why historical theology
and the doctrinal journey of men and women throughout the
ages is interesting as a hobby, as a discipline, as a literary
discipline, or as a, you know, A liberal arts discipline. It's
not to teach you the things of Christ. The word of God alone
is to teach us the things of Christ. But if he had still preached
circumcision, then why was he being persecuted? Because you
know what? When you take away sovereign grace and you add the
flesh to the redemption of God's people, the lost of the world
who claim Christ let you be. They let you be. It's all unity. Let's take out our lighters,
or our candles, you know. Now it's cell phones. Let's take
out our cell phones, turn on the lights, and let's just all
sway back in two and just, kumbaya, here it is, we're all one, give
a coconut smile. Remember that? We're all together, but the minute
someone says that the flesh is of no value, That your ministry
is of no value, that your religion is of no value for your life. Like you're a vampire or something,
they put a crucifix in your face and garlic around their necks
or silver bullets in their gun, like you're some type of beast.
So if Paul were preaching the law, if Paul were adding the
law as a confidence booster, he would not be persecuted because
he'd go hand-in-hand with the Judaizers. As a matter of fact,
I believe that even the Pharisees would probably have linked arms
with him politically. You know what? We could use another
set of families here. In that case, If I was preaching
circumcision, if I was adding to the gospel, if I was just
taking grace and like Plato, mashing it together to blend
the color, then the offense of the cross has been removed. See, when you take away the offense
of the cross, those who hate the grace of God stop complaining. It always is subtle. But once you see it, it's not
as subtle, is it? Like many of these so-called Christians and
their so-called ministries and the so-called pastorates that
have a so-called gospel, and they have young men who testify
and give testimony, who said they came to the knowledge of
the gospel of grace five years ago, but in the last five years
I've been struggling with sin and blah, blah, blah, but I was
lost. But then I stopped doing this
and I stopped doing that and I stopped doing this. Now I know
I'm a saved man. Do you know what they confessed?
They're a lost man. Oh, well, I didn't say I was
perfect now. He's still working on me. Y'all know that song. What is it that we must be doing
to be doing the work of God? Believe on the Son whom He has
sent. This world is inundated with
Judaizers. And we are not to revile, we
are not to mock, and that's difficult. Sometimes we mock and satire
covers a multitude of wounds. Have you noticed that? When we
can laugh at something in a witty way, it helps the pain. Sort of like the men dying with
Jesus mocking. Give them unity with their own
persecutors. We shouldn't mock them. poke
fun at them, we should weep and mourn for them. For if it was
not for the grace and the mercy of God to grant us the faith
to see, which is repentance, we would be just like them, working
through a cultural lens of some false gospel that is actually
condemnation. And Paul is clear in verse 12
of what he says these men should do. I wish that those who unsettle
you would emasculate themselves. And we have to get into a little
bit of a biology lesson here and a little bit of surgical
discussion, but circumcision is a delicate procedure. To emasculate oneself is to completely
remove that member. That's Paul's sentiment. Oh,
you want to really circumcise? Then do it all. Become a eunuch. And not only that, he says, I
wish they would. It'll prove their piety. But you will take no other view
For you were called to freedom, brothers. You were called to
freedom. My brothers, my sisters, my siblings,
in the grace of God. He's not talking to lost people. He's talking to regenerate, well,
secure and sealed saints who are inundated with the confusion
of works. And in some way, it's causing
them trouble because they know the truth. But this makes sense,
too. And you were called to freedom. Only do not use your freedom
as an opportunity for the flesh. I've already given away part
of the answer here, but let's take the obvious. Don't use grace
as a license for sin. Paul already deals with that.
Of the flesh. But in the context here, what
is he talking about? Do not use your freedom as an
opportunity for your flesh to find confidence in itself. for
your flesh to take on some circumcision, for your flesh to do some kind
of work. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for sin. You were running well. Who hindered
you from obeying the truth? Stop disobeying the truth by
obeying the law. Now this is strange verbiage because to the ear that is culturally
smashed, that's just so full. It's like if you swim a whole
lot and you're underwater for a long, long time, sometimes
you get water in your ear and it doesn't come out very quickly.
I've had to get, I was in a pool one time for like four days straight
doing some things and I had water in this right ear for a week.
It obviously hurt. And you'd hit it, then you'd
get a headache, you know. And that's the way I feel like
so many religious, evangelical, Protestant, false converted people
are. They've just got water in their
ears and they're so attuned to hearing the false gospel they
can't hear anything else. But I think sometimes too that
believers can get stuck in that pool and they can have water
in their ear. And sometimes it's easy. To think,
wow, you know, you're saying we're not supposed to obey Christ. No, I'm not. We are supposed
to obey Christ. Thank God he's clear and pure
in his commandment. Just one. See it in John 14,
15, 16. We see it in 1 John. This is
the commandment that you've had from the beginning, but it's
a new commandment that I give you. You love one another. You love one another. This is
the whole law. And you're thinking, James, you
are really twisting it. Just keep reading. We've already heard
it tonight. It's in the text. It's not my imagination. It's
logical argument. It is the next step here. Don't
use this freedom as an opportunity for you just to, of course, fall
into sin, but more importantly, don't use it as an opportunity
for you to do and practice things that would warrant someone thinking
that you don't hold to the gospel. Don't put confidence in your
flesh, because what's going to happen if you or I get to a little
place, and let's just say it is circumcision, we all partake
in it, and we feel pretty good, but what's next? And what if we take circumcision
with a little bit of complaint? Was it good? Was it good enough?
Did it work? Did we take baptism with the
right heart? Was it in the right means? Was the guy holding his
hand up saying in the name of the Lord Jesus, was he saved?
Was it a Baptist church? Was it a brick store? Was it
outside? Was it in a river? Was it cold? Was it hot? Did
I have a robe on? Did I have a shirt on? Was I
in swim trunks? These conversations, everybody's
worried about it. Everybody's looking to try to
find some way of making sure that they're doing what's required
of them correctly. And that's all they think about.
This is an opportunity for the flesh. Stop doing it. On top of the other things, obviously
put these things to death, which are wicked and evil in practice. How is this seen then? Do not use your freedom as an
opportunity for the flesh. In other words, don't please
yourself. Don't look to satisfy your flesh. Don't look to do
things that do stuff just for you and that give you things,
but do things for others. Live in your flesh through love. You serve one another. You serve one another. For the
whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. But what happens? In the midst of the fellowship
of the saints who hold to the gospel of grace, the patience
of the elite is gone. The security of the weak is damaged, and then everybody's taking sides
on who they're going to back. So the weak brothers and sisters
among us who are frail, who doubt, who are always coming asking
the same thing, I'm just not sure. And we give them the gospel,
we encourage them, and today they go home confident. Tomorrow
they come back, I'm scared. We have to be patient with those
who doubt. And yet there are the others
who are staunch and they're like, I've got all the right answers.
This is the truth of the gospel. I'm not hearing it. I mean, you
know, they just, they don't want to hear it. They do the dumb
and dumber idea. They just like the Acts chapter
six and seven. They cover their ears and they
yell and scream because they don't want to hear the gospel
coming out of Stephen's mouth. And so opportunity for the flesh
is when there is this heresy. Heresy, by definition, means
difference of opinion when it divides. That's what it means. I don't care what your Bible
dictionary says. Entomology is not new. Use it. Learn the words. PhDs, learn
the words. This, anything that divides the
intimacy of the brothers and sisters is heresy. It is the
dividing point, not necessarily the differences. So when we see
the differences, Paul says there must be heresies among you. Why?
Because we've got to know in the context of the fruit of the
mouth of the confession, we need to know who is and is not the
believer. But when it comes to the struggle in that, when it
comes to when people come in who try to preach the law, we
don't want to use then our freedom to just devour one another. We're
to serve one another. How are we to serve one another?
If I'm all screwed up in the head about the confidence in
Christ, are you still obligated to serve me and love me and help
me and grow me? Yes. Just because I'm a fruitcake
and it sounds like I might have forsaken the grace of God, you
are still obligated to serve me. Now, of course, if I'm being
divisive, You get warned, and then, what does Jude say? Warn
them once, and when the dividing stops, when the raw tearing and
the opposition and the biting and the devouring stops, then
everybody's okay. But if the biting and the devouring
don't stop, we take those who bite and we put them out there
with the dogs, because dogs bite. And when they come back and say,
please let me back in, we love them all the way to the bank. We take their word for it. We take it for face value and
we bring them back into the fold. And when they try it again, I'm
not saying that's a one-off. Yep, today and tomorrow and today
and tomorrow. You know, we got some sense. We know what's up. But we should love each other.
And that's where he's going in verse 16. We walk by the Spirit,
we will not think of ourselves. We will not be consumed with
our own desires. We will not be consumed in the
sense. So is there a way for a true
believer to not walk by the Spirit? Yes. Is there a way for a true
believer to believe without the Spirit? No. Now we're getting
into a function of being believers together, which is what the whole
book of James and the whole book of 1 John is all about. It's
not evangelism. It's let's get to the heart of
it. Christ died for us. Let us live for one another.
And in doing so, we live for Christ. And in loving one another,
we love Christ. Let us hold all that we have
in this world loosely for the sake of our brothers and sisters.
Even when we are speaking the truth in love that hurts, we
do it in a way that would destroy our countenance, that would destroy
our joy if we hurt one of our brothers and sisters in the faith.
The whole law. For we are free, and Christ has
set us free, and we are free to live together and love one
another. And that's where he's going. That's where he's going. Let's pray. Father, there's opportunity for me in
my heart to begin to evaluate even this commandment of love
in light of my salvation. Lord, rebuke me through your
word this night not to do that. Give me clear and secure faith
to hold to Christ. And because of faith given by
Christ, the faithfulness of Christ and His love for me, you can
grow your spirit. through your word to help me
love your people. May we all pray that for each
other this very day. In Jesus name. Amen.