So Galatians chapter five and
reading from verse one. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you
that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For
I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he
is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect
unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are
fallen from grace. For 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. Ye did run well. Who did hinder
you that ye 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 ye will be none otherwise minded. But he that
troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offence
of the cross ceased. I would they were even cut off,
which trouble you. For brethren, ye have been called
unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,
but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled
in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one
another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Now we are breaking in, in a
sense, on the argument of the Apostle, and you will remember
that we've preached a number of sermons already on this book
of Galatians and in this chapter 5 and I trust we'll be able to
remember some of those. They are available on Sermon
Audio if you want to go back and remind yourself of a couple
of the themes that we've been touching upon. But if I could
just draw your attention, perhaps in a general summary to this
point, then it'll give us a platform from which to continue our thoughts. This is the point that here in
this book, in Galatians, the Apostle Paul is comparing and
contrasting law and gospel. Now, what does that mean? I guess we often become familiar
with terminology, words, and we use those words and we can
fall into a pattern of using those words in our conversation. almost in a way which separates
them from the meaning and what it is we're talking about and
what we're thinking about. Let me give you an example. On Sunday, I was preaching here,
and I think most of you were here, and I made reference to
the triune God. Now, I'm sure there's no one
here is going to be overly puzzled about what I was meaning when
I spoke of the triune God. The gentleman that came in and
sat at the back asked me before he left, what did you mean by
triune God? What's a triune God? And we forget,
don't we, that we sometimes can use words and language, vocabulary. And it's important that we understand
what we're talking about. So here, when we speak about
law and gospel, what is the point? What is the idea behind law and
gospel? And the apostle is emphatic.
He is speaking constantly about law and gospel in this passage. He talks about being justified
by the law, or endeavouring to be justified by the law, and
how that he contrasts that to the true justification, or the
true righteousness that flows to men and women, not through
their obedience, but rather through the gift of grace, or the faith
which appropriates the grace which comes to us from the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that really is the essence
of what we mean when we talk about law. When we are speaking
about law, we are meaning the law of God. And you can think
about that primarily as the Ten Commandments, but it extends
beyond that and it extends into all of the laws, all of the judicial
and the ceremonial and the moral rules that God gave to the people
of Israel. And indeed, those three names
are often given. There are some people who make
a big thing about dividing the law up into its different compartments
and they do so with the idea of saying that, well, that part
is no longer valid. And this part continues, it's
the eternal part of the law. And this part, we can take various
pieces from it and other bits that we don't. And there is a
whole dimension of Christian theology based on a proper understanding
of the law. Scripture doesn't actually divide
the law up like that. Paul talks about the law and
what he is referring to is man's own works, man's efforts. So when we speak about the law
of God, that is simply saying that that is the highest peak,
pinnacle of human obedience that is possible. Now people have
their own ideas about what good living is, what acceptable living
is. And for some people, they would
say that if you do certain things, if you live in a certain way,
if you don't do certain things, then that's good living. and
they have their own moral structure. It might be to do with smoking
or swearing or watching certain kinds of films or drinking alcohol
and they have a structure of moral do's and don'ts which they've
been taught, their church has imposed upon them, they've learned
from their peer group, is the difference between behaving and
misbehaving. Now, your moral code is going
to be different from your neighbour's moral code. And if you endeavor
to live by your moral code, what you'll discover is that you'll
begin to be judgmental of the people around about you. And
you'll say, you know what kind of films that person watches?
I would never watch those kind of films. As you draw on your
cigarette and take your glass of whiskey. But you see, your
moral code and my moral code are different and therefore people
get through their lives thinking that they are living a good life
because they're not breaching, at least openly, the moral code
that they live by. Now, What we would say to people
is that it's all very well having one of these subjective codes
that you endeavour to live by, but God has given us the highest
moral code in the law and he gave it to the Jews, he gave
it to the children of Israel. And the children of Israel down
through the centuries of the Old Testament patriarchs, all
the way from Moses, they used that law to mould for themselves
and to fix for themselves a structure of obedience that they said Forget
about the Gentiles. Forget about the heathen. Forget
about the way that they live their lives and whether or not
they're living good lives or bad lives. We have the law of
God. We have the oracles that have
been given by God. This is the highest possible
standard of living. And if we are obedient to that
standard of living, if we endeavour to live according to that standard,
which is God's perfect standard, then we can please God by the
things that we do. And it really doesn't matter
where your moral code is, because what happens is that people say
they believe that they're able to please God. by living out
their lives according to some standard of law. And what the
Apostle Paul is saying in the book of Galatians is this, I'm
going to compare law and gospel. And I'm telling you that it doesn't
matter whether you've got the Jewish law or whether you're
living simply to some heathen principles of right and wrong
that get you through your own particular cultural acceptance
with your peer group. If it comes down to what we do,
God is not going to be satisfied because none of us can ever satisfy
his perfect holiness. There has to be another way and
Paul is contending with a group of men who had come from Jerusalem
and had instilled in the church of the Galatians or the churches
in that area of Turkey. You'll remember we've spoken
about Galatia before, an area of Turkey where Paul had established
a number of churches and he had been very encouraged by these
believers. They had accepted the gospel.
They had understood the fact of the sufficiency of the Lord
Jesus Christ's life and death on their behalf. and he was encouraged
by them and then he discovered that these individuals had come
down from Jerusalem and they were saying to the people, yes,
it's all right to believe what Paul says, it's all right to
believe the gospel, but in order to please God in the fullest
way, you've also got to live by this moral code which he has
given us, the Ten Commandments. And the way in which that was
indicated was to be circumcised. If you were circumcised, then
it meant that you were entering into an acceptance of the obligations
of the Old Testament law, the highest statement of God's moral
order. And these men were saying to
the Galatians, you need to be circumcised. You need to accept
this duty, this obligation to the law, as well as the gospel
which Paul preached. And Paul says, that's wrong. That's not right at all. And
that's the background, if you like, in which this letter is
written. He is writing to the Galatians
and saying, What have you done? Who's bewitched you? Why are
you going back? Why are you returning to these
old ways of doing things? Why have you gone back? He says
in chapter 4 verse 9, But now after that ye have known God,
or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and
beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Why are you going to become bound
when I have taught you of the gospel of liberty wherewith a
righteousness, a holiness, an acceptance with God is not based
on our doing but rather is received from God as a free gift of grace. And that's the context again
of the opening of chapter five. Stand fast therefore in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free. and be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. Don't go back to those weak and
beggarly elements. Don't go back to that law, to
that obedience, to trying to please God, trying to gain some
form of acceptance and righteousness and holiness based on the things
that you are doing. And this comparison and this
contrast between law and gospel is the thrust of Paul's letter
to the Galatians. He says in verse 1 that he is
contrasting liberty and bondage. Liberty and bondage. That's the
difference. There is liberty in the gospel,
there is bondage in the law. Freedom and entanglement. getting
all entangled in what's acceptable and what's not. Whether you can
do certain things on certain days, whether you've got to dress
in a particular way, whether our conduct and our actions are
in some way acceptable when we do them like this, but unacceptable
when we do them like that. And that has made men in theology
and doctrine for centuries, a living because they have become the
arbiters of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. And
it's an entanglement. In verse two, he spokes about
Moses, which is symbolized by circumcision and the acceptance
or going under the law by being circumcised, and Christ. So it's Moses and Christ, circumcision
or Christ. justification, endeavouring to
have peace with God because of what you do, or rather, righteousness
by the hope or the promise of God's acceptance through faith. Is it to be the crushing weight
of full legal obligation, says Paul? or is it to be the free
gift of God's mercy and grace? Now, let me just say that I refuse
to make this a theological argument. in the sense that somebody says,
well, you know, that's your perspective on things. And it's a matter
of definitions and we've got to decide whether or not we're
talking about justification or whether or not we're talking
about sanctification. We've got to be clear that we
need to take, as it were, a sharp knife, a scalpel to this and
tease apart what it is Paul is saying here to properly understand.
Because people will tell us that and I refuse to get into that
debate. Because that debate is a debate
that's going down a cul-de-sac. It's going nowhere. This subject
is much too serious for that. And verse 4 in chapter 5. simply
will not allow us to be confused in this matter. Verse four says
this, Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of
you are justified by the law. If you think for a moment that
you can find peace with God in the way that you act and the
things that you do and your lifestyle, and the way in which you interact
with the people around about you. If you think that the things
that you do is going to please God or displease God, if you
find your justification by law, then Christ's become of no effect
to you. That's how serious this matter
is. You can't have Christ and law. You can't have gospel and
works. It's one or the other. Whosoever
of you are justified by the law, you are fallen from grace. If you can imagine, or if you
imagine that you can get any righteousness before God by your
legal obedience, by your duty to the law, your works, your
efforts, your doings, then you've fallen from grace. You've kicked
grace into the long grass. You're no longer bothered about
God's grace because you're preoccupied by what you're doing and whether
or not it's acceptable. You've misunderstood the law
and you are misunderstanding the gospel. Now Paul is not arguing
here that you can lose your salvation. That's not what he's talking
about. He's battling, rather, these, let's call them Judaizers,
these people that have come down from Jerusalem, endeavoring to
lay upon the Galatian churches this structure of obedience that
they had to accept as well as their Christian testimony. These
people weren't trying to say Christianity's rubbish. They
weren't trying to say forget about Jesus, forget about Paul.
They were trying to blend these two things together, meld them
together so that their Christian testimony also was based on them
living good and acceptable lives before God. Bring these two things
together, they were saying, and that's where God is pleased with
you. And that's what Paul is arguing
against. He is saying, if you hold that
view of works, then you've lost the whole understanding of God's
grace, because these two things can't be blended together. They
are opposites. The reward? is mutually exclusive
to the gift. If it's a reward, it's not a
gift. If it's a gift, it can't be a reward for what you've done.
Duty and faith are incompatible. If it's obligation, if it's duty,
then that has completely undermined our simple faith and trust in
a completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. And
that, says the apostle, is the offence of the cross. He speaks in verse 11 about that.
He says, and I brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, which is
what these people were preaching by coming down and trying to
lay this on top of the Galatians, lay it upon their shoulders.
If I yet preach circumcision, legal obedience, why do I yet
suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross
ceased. If I'm going to preach circumcision,
these people wouldn't be offended at me. These people wouldn't
speak against me. They would receive me with open
arms. The reason why I'm still persecuted
is because I'm not preaching circumcision. This is contrary. This circumcision is contrary. This legal obligation is contrary
to the gospel of grace which I preach. We look to Christ, says Paul,
for all that is required for a full, free, complete salvation. A perfect holiness comes by faith. A full righteousness is received
by grace and we cannot enlarge or increase that holiness, that
righteousness, by the things that we say and the things that
we do. It's a finished work which the
Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished and he achieved everything on
the cross. We have a little saying in the
UK, I guess you've got it over here as well. But it's a job
that's done and dusted. The Lord Jesus Christ has done
everything that is required. And that was the essence, that
was the thrust of the Apostle's Gospel message. Every divine
obligation that God had on the sinner was satisfied by Christ. Let me say that again. Every
divine obligation, every obligation that was upon the sinner was
satisfied by the Lord Jesus Christ. All the legal requirements were
fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ. Every demand of righteousness
of good works, of godly living. You name it, whatever it was,
everything was done. It's a completed work. That's
why the Lord says on the cross, it is finished. There is zero
left to do. I guess we all know the great
hymn by Augusta's top lady, rock of ages, rock of ages cleft for
me. What is it he says? Nothing in
my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. If we go for circumcision
used as a summary of this works duty, this legal obligation,
we can't say that we're bringing nothing in our hands. We have
to understand the gospel in the context of nothing else is left
to do. Now, why is that offensive? Why
is that the offence of the cross that Paul is talking about? Well,
basically because men hate to be told that their own efforts
at righteousness are filthy rags. We don't like to hear that. We
get our status. We get our acceptance. We get
our peer acceptance by endeavouring to excel amongst the group that
we respect. We get people to say, that was
a job well done. That was excellent. We've all
benefited because of the things that you've done. That's a good
work. God would be pleased with that.
God would be pleased with the sacrifice that you've made. God
will be happy that you've put so much on the line for him.
God will be delighted at that commitment that you've made on
this matter. And for men to come to the scriptures
and discover that their dedication, their sacrifices, their commitment
is considered by God as obnoxious to him, is a filthy rag. We could actually go to some
of the backgrounds of that word, but it's actually, it's quite
disgusting if we look at the true meaning behind that phrase,
filthy rags. But the point is this, that there
is no value in man's works whatsoever before a holy God, none whatsoever. God despises what people are
most proud of. Our best efforts, our best efforts
are flawed and failed and faulty because they flow from fallen
flesh. And Paul is urging this lesson
from his own personal experience. In Romans 7, in verse 18, he
says, Now Paul is talking about himself there as a believer.
As a believer, Paul is saying, I know that what is in me, in my flesh,
is nothing good. Paul was a man who gave everything. When the apostle was called by
the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, The Lord's
testimony to Ananias who was sent to him was that I will show
him all things that he must suffer and we have a catalogue of sufferings
that the Apostle Paul went through. He talks about being shipwrecked,
he talks about being stoned, he talks about being rejected,
he talks about being maligned, he talks about being abandoned
even by his fellow believers. The Apostle Paul as a man went
through tremendous trials in his ministry and his service
for the Lord. And what does he say? He says,
I know that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. If you can do it, it's sinful. If you can do it, it's sinful. If you can say it, It's sinful. If you can think it, it's sinful. If it comes from this body of
flesh, it is corrupt because it is coming out of fallen flesh. The best work, the holiest thought,
the highest motive is spoiled by our evil nature. So Paul could say in Philippians
chapter three, verse three, for we are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. That's the big comparison. That's
the big comparison. The true circumcision is not
the circumcision of the flesh, but it's a circumcision of the
spirit. It's having a spiritual life. It's having the grace of God
in our hearts. And when the grace of God is
in our hearts, when we truly understand what God has done
for us, then we have no confidence in the flesh, none at all. Paul wasn't hated and persecuted
and stoned and beaten and conspired against because he preached law
and gospel, but because he preached law or gospel. And that was the offence of the
cross. And these same persecutors of Paul were those that were
troubling the Galatians, troubling the churches in Galatia. And
Paul says in verse 12 of chapter five, I would they were even
cut off, which trouble you. I would they were cut off. Wow. What's he saying there? Well,
you know what he might be saying? He said, he might be saying,
I wish they would be slain. I wish they would be cut off
out of this world. There's a hard thing to say.
Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he wasn't
actually wishing that these individuals would be slain. And let us just
say that he wished that they wouldn't be listened to. That's what it is to be cut off
as well, isn't it? That their mouths would be shut
up. Perhaps you've used the phrase
in your own experience. You say, you know, I was speaking
to somebody and I just started to say, and he cut me off. I just started to speak to him
and he just cut me off. What do we mean by that? Oh,
he didn't listen to what I had to say. He started to speak. He turned his back and he walked
away. He would have nothing to do with what I had to say. He
wouldn't hear it. Maybe that's what Paul means.
Let's say that it's just that. We shouldn't even listen to those
who would teach us that our works in some way are pleasing to God. Because what pleases God in any
fleshly individual is simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all. That's the only place
where God gets any pleasure, because he sees us in his Son. Here is the Apostle Paul showing
us what the true relationship is between law and works. But Paul had a better hope for
these Galatians. He says that these were brethren. He speaks of them as his brethren. He had a better hope for them. He realized that they had been,
as it were, assaulted, assailed, attacked by these Judaizers. They had brought in a subtle
message. They had brought in this idea of, yes, but you've
still got to please God by your works. And so he says, don't listen
to them, have nothing to do with them. And yet he still calls
these men his brethren. Despite their error, he condemns
their wicked teachers who deceived them and troubled their hearts.
But he hoped for better in the true spirit of these individuals. Let me summarise the Apostle's
doctrine in his own words here, if I may. Look at Galatians chapter
5 and verse 5. What he is saying here is this.
We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by
faith. Now, when we speak about hope
in a New Testament context, we're not talking about, well, I hope
this happens. We're talking about the promise
that we have been given and the waiting for the fulfilment. It's
to do with trust. It's to do with faith. We believe
in the promises of God and we await that hope. as we wait for God to fulfil
his promises. So what Paul is saying here is
that we, through the Spirit, it's because we have spiritual
life, it's because that grace of God has shone into our hearts,
it's because we've been given the gift of faith by which we
can trust in the Lord. We, through the Spirit, wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith. Our faith brings that
righteousness into our experience. We understand the promise of
God's goodness, that righteousness imputed, righteousness imparted,
that grant, that gift of grace and mercy, whereby he declares
us to be righteous in Christ, not because of what we've done,
not because of our works, not because of our moral framework,
but because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us.
And then he continues, verse 13, brethren, ye have been called
to liberty. You've been called to live out
this promise of righteousness through faith, and that is how
we are to live. We're not to be looking over
our shoulders to these weak, beggarly elements, but we rather
by the Spirit are to look forward in hope, and we are to live in
the liberty of the fact that God declares us to be righteous,
that he looks upon us and he is satisfied, that he sees us
in his Son and he is well pleased, and we are to live in the light
of that statement, that promise, that hope that we have. Now I can imagine that some reaction
is going to be generated from some who hear these words. And they're going to say, you
can't ignore the law. Or we've still got to encourage
good works. Or if you preach liberty from
the law, then all you'll get is sinful Christians. Well, I've heard those arguments
and I know those arguments and those arguments will be with
the church till the day that the Lord Jesus Christ takes us
home. But the apostle has previously
declared in this book of Galatians in chapter 2 verse 19, I through
the law am dead to the law. that I might live unto God. That's what Paul says about the
law. He said, I'm dead to it. It's
got nothing more to say to me, nothing more to do with me. I'm
dead to the law that I might live unto God. Nowhere does the
Apostle Paul teach against good works. The Lord's people don't
want to do evil. We don't desire to do evil. When we are tempted, when we
are tried, when we do fall, it causes us great regret and remorse. And we are brought to repentance
because that's the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a
believer. And we discover and we discern
that we are weak. We begin to realize the implications
of these two natures that wrestle in our person. That there is a flesh and there
is a spirit. And we feel sometimes the weakness
of our spirit when the fresh flesh encroaches on us and seems
to be winning that battle. And then at other times, by the
grace of God, it seems that the spirit has victory over the flesh,
but it is a constant engagement and fight. The apostle is here. teaching
that the believer lives unto God. He serves and honours God
by his faith. He's going on in the latter part
of chapter five to speak about walking in the Spirit and we'll
touch upon that on another occasion. But just to be clear and perhaps
with an eye to his gainsayers, He at once reminds the Galatians
of the implications of their spiritual nature. And so he says
to them, Brethren, verse 13, ye have been called unto liberty. That's what the gospel has done. It has brought you out from any
sense of getting your righteousness, getting your holiness, getting
your sanctification from anywhere other than Christ by faith. Only, he says, use not liberty
as an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. We could compare that message,
because the apostle was consistent in all of the epistles that he
wrote, we can compare that message to what he says in Colossians
chapter two, verse six. He says there, as ye have therefore
received Christ Jesus the Lord, So walk ye in him. You see, the
fact that you've received this spiritual life, the fact that
the Holy Spirit has come in, the fact that we've received
grace, that we've received the gift of faith in which we understand
the completeness and sufficiency of the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ and lay hold upon that for our acceptance with God,
means that we don't look back over our shoulder to the weak,
beggarly elements of trying to please God by the things that
we do. Rather, we walk in the Spirit that we have been given.
Rather, we follow Christ's example. Rather, we live in the principle,
the new principle of the new man that has been created in
us. We're new creations. And that
new creation means that we follow a different master. We walk to
a different tune. Brethren, if you have received
Christ Jesus, the Lord, dwell in him. The end of 1 Corinthians chapter
1 speaks there of Christ being made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. If Christ has been made unto
us wisdom, then let us wisely discern between law and gospel. Let us see what it is that the
gospel doctrine is. Christ has been made unto us
wisdom, so rightly divide the word of truth. See that the law
is not to make us righteous, not to make us well-pleasing
to God. Christ has done that. Rather,
the law was given to expose our failure, shortcoming, sinfulness,
and to bring us into condemnation. don't endeavor to go back to
that weak, beggarly element because it will only continue to do its
job. That's the job of the law, to
bring you into judgment, to condemn you. And if you go back and think
to yourself, you're going to please God by having a form of
conduct which is exemplary according to the scriptures, then you will
find that that old man will bring you down every single day. And instead of being able to
walk in the Spirit and enjoy the blessings of the Gospel promises
that he has given us, we will be beating ourselves over the
head, we will be flailing ourselves across the shoulders, thinking
that I've failed again, I've failed again, I've failed again
and again. And there's no joy in that. So
the Apostle says, walk in the Spirit. Understand what God has
done for us. That's what it is to be wise.
If Christ has been made unto us righteousness, what does that
mean? It means that our righteousness
doesn't come from any legal, moral structure. It comes from
Christ. It's imputed to us because Christ
has secured and obtained all that is needful to put us into
that position of acceptance with God. That's why the Old Testament
speaks of the Lord our righteousness. Christ is our righteousness.
We have Christ. We are holy before God. We are
as holy as Christ is. because we are seen in him. He's made unto us wisdom and
righteousness. He's made unto us sanctification.
People say, well, we get our justification from Christ and
his death, but our sanctification has to be worked up for ourselves
by our obedience to the law. No, Christ is our sanctification. He is the one who has done everything
for us. He has set us apart in this world
that we might follow after him. He has changed us. He has made
us anew. He has indwelt us with his spirit
and he's made us different people. people that can walk and follow
after him. He is our redemption. He has
redeemed us from the curse of the law and he has brought us
into a new relationship with God, which is not based on our
doings or our thinkings or our sacrifices or our commitment,
but is based on faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for the complete
sacrifice that he made on our behalf. If we have received Him
as our life, as our light, as our all in all, then we walk
in Him, we live in Him. Christ is everything to His people
and we delight to be conformed to His likeness. All we do now
is done for him. All our deeds, though poor and
feeble, are done to his glory. All we desire is to be like him. And though we struggle in the
flesh, we know that there is that new man, that new man that
is acceptable to God, that new man that has been implanted in
our soul. and our heart has been changed,
our spirit has been quickened, our thoughts have been purified
in Christ and therefore Paul says stand fast in that liberty
and then proceed. Having stood fast in your liberty
then proceed by walking in him by the spirit. Law never motivated
love in any of its subjects. Law condemns. It is the gospel
that motivates love. Love to God, love to the brethren,
love to serve and honour Christ out of gratitude and thanksgiving
for what he has done for us It is the gospel that enables and
encourages us to nourish the people of God, to serve them,
to comfort the downcast, to strengthen the weak. Christian liberty never
tends to promiscuity or licentiousness, never leads us into evil conduct. but it leads us to Christ-likeness
and to conformity to the image of Christ. Indeed, so sure is
Paul of this fact that he turns the argument around and he says
that the absence of Christ-likeness is evidence that men have never
known Christ in the first place. If you've got to whip people
with the law, it's because they've never known Christ. If you've
got to force people and corral people and put up fences and
push people down a particular code of conduct, a particular
level of morality, a way of acting and a way of dealing and a way
of dressing and a way of speaking and we don't do this and we don't
do that. If you've got to force people
into some moral structure or moral code, it's because they've
never had Christ in their lives. We do not look to ourselves.
Paul says, if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you
be not consumed one of another. The law will always measure our
shortcomings. And the flesh always misses the
target. But when we look to Christ, when
we discern that new principle of life in our hearts, that is
Christian liberty. And that's what brings us into
a true, loving experience of Christ and a care for one another. We walk as new men and new women. We walk as spiritual creatures
in whom the Lord Jesus Christ himself dwells. Christ in us, the hope of glory. And this is Paul's constant,
unchanging message. This is why he was so burdened
for these Galatians. He preached this gospel, that
gospel that he preached had been received, and now these troublemakers
were coming in and trying to make the Galatians look back
and to go back. But that's the gospel. Let me
give you another example where Paul speaks this same gospel
to a different church. It's in Philippians 2, verse
1. With this, we're going to bring
it to an end. In Philippians 2, verse 1, he
says this. If there be therefore any consolation
in Christ, if any comfort of love If any
fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill
ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of
one accord, of one mind. While Paul was asking the Philippians,
let me ask you the exact same question. Is there any consolation
in Christ? Have you found any consolation
in Christ? Does Christ do anything for you?
Have you found any consolation in this life, in trusting in
the Lord Jesus Christ? Is there any gladness comes to
your heart by realising that the Lord Jesus Christ has died
for you? And in some way understanding
that the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses from all
sin. That the promises of God that
those who come, even with a childlike faith, simply trusting in the
fact that God is true to his word and God has promised that
those who trust him, those who believe, will receive all of
these blessings. Has that given you any consolation
at all in the midst of this life, in the midst of this world? Is there any comfort in love? Is there any comfort in love?
Is there any fellowship with the Holy Spirit? Any yearning tenderness towards
God the Father for all the things that He has done for you? any
sense in which you feel the blessedness of sins forgiven because of the
great work of the triune God, then be like-minded. That's what
Paul says. If there therefore be any consolation
in Christ, if there be any comfort of love, if there's any fellowship
of the Spirit, any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy that
ye be like-minded. Take these experiences that you
have received and live in them, enjoy them. Receive them and
experience them and let them flow into your heart and let
them flow out in your attitudes, in your way of thinking, in the
life that you live, in your dealings with one another. The love that
comforts, then comfort one another. The consolation that you've received,
console one another. the fellowship of the Spirit,
then share with one another, sustain and nourish one another,
the bowels and mercies, then share these things with one another,
be like-minded, having the same love with one accord, with one
mind. The Christian's motivation to
love, the Christian's motivation to service, the Christian's motivation
to everything that we do in this world is through the Spirit. It's not to do with law, and
it's not to do with duty, and it's not to do with the condemning
obligation of an old dispensation, but it is always prompted and
motivated by the indwelling grace of God in our lives and our identification
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And brothers and sisters, that's
enough. That's enough. It's all we need. And we add nothing to it and
we take nothing from it. Christ is our all in all. Amen.