Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow
along in your Bibles, I'll be preaching from the book of Galatians
chapter five. Galatians chapter five, beginning
at verse one, concerning the subject of our liberty in Christ. Now I've preached on this before,
but it's one of my favorite subjects when we talk about a true believer,
a true Christian, who is free, free from the law. We sing a
hymn called Free from the Law, O Happy Condition, Jesus hath
bled and there is remission. And talking about the liberty
that true believers, sinners saved by grace, have in and by
and because of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Galatians chapter
five and verse one, the apostle writes to the Galatians, He says,
stand fast, that means firm and immovable. Therefore, in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Now that tells
us something there. We didn't make ourselves free.
This freedom wasn't natural to us. Stand fast, firm and immovable,
therefore, and I'll talk about the therefore in just a moment,
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Now let me say this
at the outset. The liberty and the freedom that
God's people have in Christ is never in any way, shape or form
to any degree a liberty to sin. You know, I hear people sometimes
raise an objection when we talk about salvation totally by grace. And sometimes we'll use the term
free grace. Well, really there's no other
kind of grace but free grace. Because if you put a condition
on it, or add a cost to it, then it's not grace. Someone said
that mercy is God not giving us what we deserve, and grace
is God giving us what we don't deserve, and that's true. Grace
is salvation totally, and listen to this. Grace is salvation totally
conditioned on the Lord Jesus Christ, who by himself as the
surety and the substitute and the redeemer of his people fulfilled
those conditions to ensure their salvation. And that's why we
talk about grace. The Bible says that grace reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now we, and I always want to make this clear too, salvation
does not cost me anything, but it costs Christ everything. There
is a cost, there is a price to be paid, and the price is His
blood, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. That's what the
Scripture says, the redemption price, the payment for sin is
the blood, the death. substitutionary death of the
Lord Jesus Christ because sin demands death. We will quote
Romans 3.23 a lot of times. Or Romans 6.23, the wages of
sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Romans 6.23. So there is a cost,
but I didn't pay it. Now, I know the Bible says for
us to count the cost, but that's not the payment for sin. That's
not my righteousness before God. In other words, it's gonna cost
me everything in the sense that I'm gonna have to leave all that
I naturally, in unbelief and sin, hold dear and lay hold of
Jesus Christ. But the liberty that's in Christ
is never liberty to sin. And so when we talk about salvation
totally by grace, saved by grace, kept by grace, and brought to
glory by grace, a lot of people will come back with this objection.
Well, then that means I don't have to obey or I can sin as
much as I want to. But the liberty that believers
have in Christ is never liberty to sin. You know what it is?
It's liberty to serve. It's liberty to follow Him and
to love Him, to believe in Him. That's what this liberty is.
And he says, stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free. And don't be entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. Now he says there in verse one,
he says, stand fast therefore. The therefore reaches back to
what he had written in the first four chapters of Galatians. And
what you have to understand is there was a problem. In the area
of Asia Minor called Galatia, there were several groups of
people that Paul had been used by God to establish as gospel
churches. And after Paul left on other
missionary journeys, Jewish false preachers came into those churches
and began teaching the law as something that would substantiate
salvation. something that would cover it
and make it better. In other words, they were introducing
the law, the law of circumcision, the law of days and weeks and
months, abstinence. In other words, they were saying
that they believed in Christ. They were claiming to be Christian.
And they were saying that they're saved by grace. But a believer
has to keep certain aspects of the law, such as circumcision
and keeping of days and this, that, and the other, in order
to be really saved, in order to be holy, or in order to be
made more righteous, and to evidence their salvation. And Paul calls
that bondage. You see, salvation is totally
by grace, based upon the righteousness, the merits of Christ, obedience
unto death. His righteousness imputed to
me. The righteousness in which I stand before God, justified,
whole, saved, and free, is not my works in any way, to any degree,
at any stage of my Christian life. It is totally the work
of Christ. It's called the righteousness
of God. And when anybody comes in and tries to put me under
the law and say, do this or do that in order to attain or maintain
salvation or to be rewarded in heaven, that's bondage. That's legalism. That's salvation
conditioned on sinners. And that's what these Jewish
false professors were bringing in to the churches of Galatia.
And Paul says, don't allow them to do that. In fact, in chapter
one, he called it another gospel, which is not another. He says
it's a false gospel. And he said, those who preach
it, let them be anathema. They're claiming to be super
Christians. They're claiming to be super holy, super righteous. But he says they are anathema,
they're under the curse of God. In fact, in Galatians chapter
three and verse 10, he says, those who are of the works of
the law, they're under the curse of the law. Cursed is everyone
that continueth not in all things which are written in the book
of the law to do them. And then he went on to say that
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. You see, that's
the liberty that we have in Christ. Now this liberty has a twofold
aspect that we need to understand. And the place that I like to
go to see that is Romans chapter six. Now, we could go to other
passages. We could go to other passages
other than Galatians 5 and Romans 6, but I think these are two
of the best. Galatians 5, the liberty that we have in Christ,
that liberty to serve, that liberty to obey as a servant, a servant
of God. But here in Romans chapter six,
we see that defined. And in Romans chapter six in
verse seven, if you'll look at that, the first aspect of this
liberty is a legal liberty. Now there's a legal liberty.
You see, people by nature who fell in Adam, and that's all
of us by nature, we fell into a state of sin and death. And were it not for God's grace
in Christ, we would be condemned by the law. And therefore the
only hope we have is that that condemnation be removed by Christ
as the surety the substitute and the Redeemer of God's chosen
people. Now there are people who are
under condemnation and they will live and they will die in unbelief. That's what the Bible says. But
those who are saved by the grace of God have been brought out
from under condemnation by the Lord Jesus Christ as their surety.
Now when I say their surety, what I'm talking about is that
Christ stands accountable for their debt to the law of God. You see, to be a sinner is to
run up a debt. And we talk about it in our earthly
legal system. When a person commits a crime
and they're found guilty, Well, they have to go to prison or
do something by way of punishment in order to pay their debt to
the law or pay their debt to society. Well, breaking the law,
the law of God, sinning, coming short of the mark is like running
up a debt. Well, God, the Bible teaches
that God, before the foundation of the world, chose a people
to save and accounted, reckoned, charged their debt, sin debt,
to Christ. And Christ willingly took that
debt and willingly agreed to do what it would take to pay
that debt. So He's our surety. The sins
of God's elect have been imputed to Christ, charged to Christ.
They're not imputed to them. That's why the Bible says, who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justifies. And then in order to pay that
debt, Christ had to become the substitute of His people. He
had to take our place. And in order to do that, he had
the Son of God, who is the second person of the Trinity, very God
of very God in every attribute of deity, had to unite himself
with a sinless humanity, human body and soul, created for him
in the womb of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit. That's the incarnation. And that's why we talk about
the person of Christ. He is God manifest in the flesh. He had to be made flesh without
sin, but having sin imputed to him, he had to be made flesh
in order to do what was required. And that is the wages of sin
is death. He had to die. That's the payment. His blood is the payment. It's
a penal substitution. A lot of modern theologians who
don't believe the true gospel, don't believe the Bible, they
don't like that. They don't like the idea of a penal substitution. Well, my friend, my only hope
is the penal substitutionary work of Christ. My hope is built
on nothing less than Jesus' blood and His righteousness. That's
what His blood equals. Righteous, His death. Removed
my sins, paid the debt in full. by one offering, sin offering. He hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. Hebrews 10 and verse 14. And
so that's that penal substitutionary work. That's the legal work that
Christ did. And in doing that, what did he
do? He redeemed me from my sins. Redeemed how I love to proclaim
it. Redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. The redemption price is the blood of Christ. You're not
redeemed with the works of man or the things of this earth,
silver and gold, but we're redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Worthy
is the Lamb, you see. In Romans chapter six here, he
speaks of the death of Christ as the surety, as the substitute,
as the redeemer of his people. And he says, this is Romans 6,
four, now this is the legal aspect of the believer's liberty in
Christ. That's the foundation of all
liberty. what Christ did on the cross
according to the power and the purpose of God. And this is what
he's talking about in Romans 6, 4. Well, look at verse 3.
Romans 6, 3. He says, No, you not that so
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into
his death. Now, the baptism that he's talking
about here is not water baptism, the ordinance of baptism. The
Bible speaks of that in other places, that believers, if you're
a believer, you are to confess your faith in Christ in believer's
baptism. But believers' baptism in water,
the ordinance, does not wash away our sins. It does not save
us. It does not enact the work of
the Spirit. It is a confession that that
has already been accomplished by Christ, by His grace. The
word baptized means placed into. It means to be in union with,
and so immersed in. And it says here, if you were
placed into Jesus Christ, you were baptized into His death.
What does that mean? That means when Christ died,
He died for me. It means when He died, He died
as my surety to pay my debt. I'm the sinner. He's the surety. He's the substitute. That means
he died to satisfy the justice of God in my place and work out
a perfect righteousness by which God can justify me. And it's all based upon his righteousness,
Christ's righteousness, charged, accounted, reckoned, imputed
to me. and therefore I cannot be condemned.
But look on at verse four. He says, therefore we are buried
with him by baptism into death. When he died, I died. When he
was buried, I was buried. That like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. When he arose, we arose, and
we will be risen in another way, which I'll talk about in just
a moment. Look at verse five, Romans six. for if we've been
planted together in the likeness of his death." Now, this is something
that happened to all of God's chosen people together. Now,
if he was talking about believers' baptism, that didn't happen to
all of us together. If you're a believer and you
were truly baptized under the preaching of this gospel, You
weren't baptized the same time I was. I wasn't baptized the
same. But here's a baptism that took
place for all of us together. What's he talking about? He's
talking about our representative union. Our legal union with Christ. In Christ, All of God's elect
were represented by Him, so that when He died, we all died. When
He was buried, we all were buried. When He arose again, we all arose
again, not personally in ourselves, but in Christ as our surety,
our substitute, and our Redeemer. And so verse five says, for if
we have been planted together in the likeness of His death,
we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing
this, verse 6, that our old man is crucified with Him. Now the
old man there is our connection with Adam in that state of sin
and death, and it was crucified with Christ. In other words,
we can't be condemned. That sin and death that Adam
plunged us into, that death that we were born into, the sins that
we have committed, that connection with, that's the old man, that's
the unregenerate man. Well, he's been crucified. He's
been put to death. This is not dying, this is put
to death, past tense. He says that the body of sin,
that is the whole body that sin involves, might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin. Now, hold on there. That's not just about morality
and immorality. That has to do with salvation.
But look at verse seven. For he that is dead, he that
died with Christ, was buried with Christ, rose again with
Christ, is freed from sin. Now that word freed there is
literally the word justified. What is it to be justified? It's
to be legally, legally free from sin. It's to be forgiven. of all my sins, past sins, present
sins, future sins, all sins, sins of thought, sins of commission,
sins of omission, my fallen, the whole body of sin was taken
care of, fully paid for by the blood of Christ. And then to
be justified means this too, it means to be declared before
God legally, really, factually, righteous before God, not guilty. I'm righteous in God's sight
so that I cannot be charged with my sins. Christ was charged with
my sins and he put them away. I'm charged with his righteousness.
Romans chapter four and verse six says, blessed is the man,
describes the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth
righteousness, charges righteousness without works. How does God do
that? Through the substitutionary work
of His Son. And that's our legal freedom.
And it's stated in Romans 8 one, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ. And then the evidence that they're
in Christ is they walk not according to the flesh, but after the Spirit. And that leads me to the next
aspect of this freedom. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherein Christ has made you free. How's Christ made me
free? Legally, I'm not condemned. Legally, I cannot be charged
with my sins. Sin cannot be imputed to me.
Legally, I'm righteous in God's sight. All right, here's the
second aspect. Look at Romans chapter six and
verse 17. Now this is the spiritual aspect
of our liberty in Christ, the believer's liberty. And understand
now, I'm not talking about all without exception. I'm talking
about those who believe, those who have been brought to faith
in Christ and repentance by God. And this is the spiritual aspect.
And this is when we enter into that perfectly and Personally,
we enter into that liberty. That which Christ accomplished
in the mind of God before the foundation of the world and at
the cross, before I was born, for me, legally, now God brings
me by the Holy Spirit into a personal knowledge and experience of that
liberty. And here it is in Romans 6, 17.
But God bethinked that you were the servants of sin. Now to understand
the Bible, you have to understand what it means by these phrases
like servant of sin. And usually when people think
of a servant of sin, they think of somebody who is openly immoral
among society. But let me tell you what a servant
of sin is here. A servant of sin here is an unbeliever. He may be a religious unbeliever. She may be religious. She may
be sincere and dedicated. They may be good parents, good
husbands, good wives, good fathers, good mothers in the eyes of man. But if they do not believe in
Christ, They are slaves to sin, self-righteousness, self-love. You understand that now? That's
what he's calling these people. When Christ confronted the Pharisees,
he told them, he says, you do indeed appear righteous unto
men, but inwardly, you're full of dead men's bones. And people
say, well, they weren't sincere. Listen, you can be religiously
sincere and still be lost, still be a servant of sin, Servants
of sin are what we are all by nature as born into this world
until we're born again by the Spirit, until we're brought to
faith in Christ and repentance of dead works. So you were the
servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart. The heart,
what is the heart? It's the mind, it's the affections,
it's the will, it's the conscience, it's the inner man. You have
obeyed from the heart. In other words, you're not just
giving lip service to it. It's not just an outward profession
or some kind of outward reformation. You've obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered you or literally which
you were delivered to. And what is that form of doctrine?
That's the gospel. The Bible calls the gospel the
gospel of liberty. Liberty in Christ. It's the proclamation
of liberty. Isaiah chapter 61 speaks of how
Christ came to proclaim liberty to the captives. Christ said
in John chapter 8, the truth will set you free. Now I've already
been set free legally by Christ on the cross. But until he brings
me into a personal knowledge and experience of that in the
new birth by the Holy Spirit, you must be born again. I don't
know anything about it and I'm a servant of sin and unbelief.
But now when the Holy Spirit comes under the preaching of
the gospel, the gospel which is the power of God and the salvation,
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed, that's the merits
of Christ, obedience unto death as my surety, my substitute and
my redeemer, that's the doctrine. That's the teaching, that's what
that is. That's the truth which I was delivered to and I've obeyed
it from the heart. Now, how can a sinner who is
naturally rebellious, naturally ignorant, dead in trespasses
and sins, obey this doctrine from the heart? It's a work of
God. It's a work of the Holy Spirit
in us. God says, I'll give him a new heart. You see, the natural
heart is deceitful, desperately wicked. Who can know it? The
natural man will not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
If left to ourselves, to our own, as they say today, free
will, we will not obey the doctrine. We will not obey it from the
heart. God has to give us spiritual life. You must be born again
or you cannot enter or see the kingdom of God. And the new birth
has to come about by God. It doesn't come about by anything
I do or don't do or you do or don't do. It's all the work of
God. It's a sovereign, invincible, powerful work of God under the
preaching of the gospel. And he says, you've obeyed that
from the heart. He's given me a new heart. He's
given me a new spirit. The heart of a regenerate person. How do you know he's given you
a new heart? Because you obey this doctrine. Sincerely, inwardly,
in your very inner being. And then he says, verse 18, being
then made free from sin. Now, the word free there is liberation. As the word freed in Romans 6-7
was justification, the word free here is liberation. You've been
liberated. What have I been liberated from?
Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. Now to be a servant of sin is
to be in unbelief. To be a servant of righteousness
is to believe in Christ as the Lord our righteousness. It's
not just to go from being immoral to moral. It's going from being
an unbeliever to being a believer in Christ. It's going from hating
the doctrine to loving the doctrine because it tells me of the glorious
person and the finished work of Christ. We're servants of
righteousness because we follow Christ who is our righteousness. And that's what Paul says, stand
fast in that liberty. Hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.