Chico Alliance Church
“Loosing our Grip on Grace”
I. Paul Possessed the Correct credentials 1-2
II. Paul Proclaimed the Correct Concept of Grace 2:15-4:31
A. The Gospel of Grace Introduced 2:15-21
B. The Gospel of Grace Argued and Illustrated 3:1-4:31
1. Faith Argued by clarifying interrogation 3:1-6
2. Genuine faith illustrated by Abraham 3:7-29
3. New life illustrated by sonship 4:1-31
a. Slavery verses sonship 4:1-11
b. Passionate Personal Appeal 4:12-20
c. Children of the flesh verses Children of the promise 4:21-31
By this point in his letter it becomes quite evident that there are only two modes of operation.
One – walk by the Spirit by a daily dependent faith relationship with Christ based on grace.
Two – walk by the flesh by daily independent ritual or works and ceremony based on law.
First Paul appealed to Abraham. Now he illustrates the truth of justification by faith through Abraham’s two sons. Paul aims this section to those wanting to live by a system of rules and ritual rather than faith and relationship.
Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?
The very law you wish to serve, actually hinders relationship with Christ. Paul proceeds to illustrate from history why you don’t want to live under law. A basic familiarity with the Old Testament story is helpful here. In this passage, which has been said to be the most difficult of the letter, Paul contrasts the two ways or systems life practiced today. Man either seeks to relate to God on the basis of proud reliance on personal performance or he comes to God on the basis of humble reliance on the promise of God. Like Ishmael, the flesh attempts to capture our heart. The flesh wants to inherit the promise without humility and submission. The flesh wants to demonstrate itself superior. The flesh fights against the spirit. These Galatian believers had fallen back into ritual and rules rather than relationship and faith. How about us?
God does not desire we merely follow rules but enjoy regular relationship with Him. My relationship with God must not be driven by doing the right thing, but being the right person who naturally does the right things. Doing right does not lead to being right. Being right always leads to doing right. My focus must center on the internal not the external. I must continually believe God to accomplish what I cannot. I am no longer bound by my inability but blessed His promise. I am then continually grateful and humbled by my progress. If you want to operate according to law you must listen to the law.
Cursed is everyone who does not abide by every law. Paul urges these believers to cast out the bondwoman’s son – the flesh - because we are children of the free woman.
C. The gospel of grace applied 5:1-12
Here Paul makes some very specific application to the Galatian situation.
1. Christ freed us to live in freedom 5:1
IT was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
All of us are yoked to something. Yoked to the harsh reality of the world, the flesh and the devil and the condemnation of law. Christ calls us to come to Him and put ourselves under His yoke. Jesus said
"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and YOU SHALL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. "For My yoke is easy, and My load is light." Matthew 11:28-30
Paul spent the first part of his litter demonstrating the wonder of identification with God’s family and living by the new law of the spirit of life in Christ. In comparison, this life is true freedom. Freedom is not the right to do whatever we want or the flesh desires, but true God-purchased freedom is the power and the desire to live according to how we were designed. Freedom is the ability to enjoy life as we were designed in the face of severe enticement and intimidation to suffer the consequences of living life contrary to design. Within the fence of God’s moral design is maximum freedom.
He created us to live life to its fullest capacity.
Without the string, a kite is subject to the whim of every wind that comes along. With a string, the kite uses the wind to soar and fly and turn and twist in the wind. Christ died that we might really live. “The life that I now live,” Paul said earlier, “I live by faith, not works.” Remember, by the works of the law shall NO flesh be justified in His sight. No one will live out from under devastating guilt. When we live according to the spirit of life in Christ, we instinctively live as we were designed. When we continually submit ourselves to the indwelling Spirit of Christ, we become more and more like Him. When we become like Him we automatically live like Him. That is the purpose of setting us free from the Law. The law can only terrorize and condemn. The spirit transforms and comforts. Christ gave his life that we might live free according to design.
Therefore: Application
It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1
1—Keep on standing firm
Stand still. Moses said to the Israelites, “stand still and see the salvation of God.” By faith watch God accomplish what we cannot begin to even attempt. Stand firm in the truth of justification by faith. Make it a continually habit to live according to the spirit of life in Christ. Keep walking in the Spirit. God designed us to live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
2—Stop being held fast in a yoke of slavery
Passive verb meaning to be held fast by something. Paul says don’t get trapped again by that which Christ set you free. We have been set free from the law of sin and death. Keep casting out the son of the bondwoman. Keeping putting to death the deeds of the flesh. Stop living by the same system ritual and rules which proves itself not only ineffective but utterly impossible.
Why?
2. Trusting law keeping, keeps you from experiencing Christ 5:2-4
Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
This passage must be understood in the context of the letter. He is not talking about the possession of salvation but the pleasure of salvation. Paul continually calls these Galatians, “brethren” and employs the term we. He longs to lure them back to the freedom of life in the spirit rather than the folly of trying to live by personal merit and performance Paul asserts that if you revert to keeping the law as a means to life, the only way to enjoy that life is by keeping the whole law. Insisting on law-keeping in one point as a means to life obligates you to follow the whole system. We all know that no one has or ever will be able to do that.
If one decides to play baseball rather than football he subjects himself to the rules of baseball. He does not have the luxury of arbitrarily applying rules from other sports. If you insist on keeping-law, says Paul, you must follow the rules of the law. Paul tells these Galatians to subject themselves again to a system of law is to return to incarceration and miss the freedom God intended them to enjoy through Christ. He wants them to realize that just being circumcised (as the Judaizers were urging) would not atone or over shadow all the other violations.
When a policeman stops us for speeding and we proceed to tell him all the good things we have done that day, do you think it will stop him from writing a citation for the speeding infraction? Probably not. Neither will God pardon us for a single righteousness act when there is a truckload of infractions on our record.
If you trust keeping law as a means to life, Christ is unnecessary and you don’t need grace. The problem is that no one can keep the law. Reversion to law-keeping as a means to right standing with God results in three things.
• Christ will be of no benefit or value to you.
If you rely on circumcision to save you and put you in right relationship with God you must not stop there. You are obligated to keep the whole law! If you decide to play “baseball”, the rules concerning life in Christ will be of no help or benefit.
Say you are flying 10,000 feet above the earth. You are now forced to jump because the plane is going to crash. You have two choices.
1 – depend on your own ability to flap your arms.
2 – submit to Christ’s transforming operation to install wings.
Christ died to set us free from the burden and destruction of trying to fly on your own.
NOTE:
If you have never come to Christ for wings, you will one day hit the ground. You will experience an intimate encounter with the law of sin and death.
If you have been granted the wings of faith and have enjoyed the freedom of flight above guilt and sin and death and yet fail to ever use them again, you miss the freedom and experience of flight which transcends the law of gravity even though you have the capacity.
It is like the eagle who came down to live with the turkeys. Even though he was designed to fly above the earth with ease, he subjected himself to the law of gravity once again by failing to use his God-given wings. We, like the eagle, were designed to soar by the Spirit. Christ died to transform us and grant us wings once again. We must not go back to the yoke of bondage to a religious system of ritual and rules. If we do, experientially speaking, Christ at that point is of no benefit. Our walk and experience will be and look no different than the turkeys with whom we live. He is only of benefit when trusted and allowed to work. The law of life in Christ is just that – life in Christ.
• You have been severed from Christ.
To take out of the sphere of activity. If you don’t walk with the Lord you aren’t in the position to experience his blessing. Walking by the energy of personal merit reaps bondage. Walking by the energy of the indwelling Spirit of Christ reaps eternal blessing. To walk by the flesh removes you from the sphere of Christ’s power. If you don’t flap your wings of faith, you don’t get in the air. You live out of the sphere of where Christ functions.
If you disengage the engine of the car by taking it out of gear, you have been severed from the engine. No matter how much we rev the engine, we will not move. If we insist on living a works based life apart from engaging the engine by faith we will go nowhere.
• You have fallen from grace.
Fall here means to “lose ones grip” To walk in law demonstrates that you have lost your grip on grace. Any time we return to a merit, performance system of relationship with God, we loose our grip on Grace. By grace we are saved. By grace we are sanctified. We received the Spirit through believing the truth apart from personal merit. The Spirit works mightily in us through believing the truth apart from personal merit. To live outside of faith in the promise of God to do in and for us what we cannot do is to lose our grip on grace. As long as we hold on to a good understanding of grace, any number of experiences become possible
As long as you hold on to the rope in water skiing, you have the freedom of riding on top of the water above the frigid, jellyfish infested, salt-saturated water of Puget Sound. Let go of the rope and a whole new set of experiences emerge. To approach God on the basis of our performance rather than his promise is to lose our grip on the true meaning of grace and sink back into guilt, bitterness, stings of the enemy, coldness, spiritual hypothermia.
Amazing grace how sweet the sound that not only saved a wretch like me but keeps a saint like me a saint. I am afraid that we too often loose our grip on grace. Grace focuses on God’s promise. Works focuses on man’s performance. Any time we put man’s puny performance against God’s eternal promise we come up woefully short of the glory of God. It is Christ IN us the ONLY hope of glory. You cannot cling to law and grace at the same time. You must cling to one and release your grip on the other. It is impossible to receive Christ, thereby acknowledging that you cannot save yourself, and then receive circumcision, thereby claiming that you can.
3. The true Christian lives by faith 5:5-6
For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
Here, Paul moves from the negative to the positive. As opposed to no benefits, severed from Christ and losing a grip on grace, the true Christian lives by faith. Notice the three fold foundation of Christianity -- Faith, hope and love. Christ is all we need. Faith in Christ is the central issue. It is not ceremony or ritual or religion. To add anything to the work that Christ did on the cross implies that Christ’s work was not enough; something must be added. We degenerate into a man centered teaching rather than a God centered teaching. Christ supplemented is Christ supplanted. Christ alone is sufficient to win and keep those he calls and present them blameless before the Father. The Christian life is not working for righteousness but waiting for righteousness . Romans indicates a passionate groaning in regard to our redemption. Both the saints and creation itself groan in hopeful anticipation of the revealing of the sons of glory.
1 Peter urges us to stand firm with this hope in mind.
“Therefore, gird you minds for action, keep sober in sprit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
The Christian life revolves around belief in the promise of God. It is trusting God’s promise not our performance. So often we, like Abraham, try to bring about God’s promise by our performance. We feel like God needs our help. We attempt to bring about eternal purposes by mortal means. God urges us through Paul to spread the wings of faith which enable us to rise above the circumstances and temptations of life, while continually looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. Paul next expressed his passionate disapproval of those who robbed these believers of the experience of their freedom in Christ.
4. God will judge the false teachers 5:7-12
You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt no other view; but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is. But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.
Paul inserts a bit of sarcasm here. If a little bit of ceremony and ritual demonstrates spirituality why not go all the way? Why stop with circumcision? If circumcision has merit, then how much more castration. It was a common practice of the cults and religions to undergo voluntary castration to demonstrate their seriousness. Paul expressed confidence that God would take care of these teachers. His concern centered on drawing the Galatians back to the truth of the gospel and their freedom in Christ by faith apart from law keeping, ceremony or ritual.
Conclusion
Christ is our only hope for righteousness.
Christ is our only hope for standing with God.
Christ alone met the laws demands on our behalf.
Christ is the designer and developer of our faith.
Christ will complete the work he began.
Christ will make us like Him.
Nothing else profits.
No one else can do the job.
To add requirements outside of what Christ has done is to deny the magnificent work of grace freely lavished on all who believe.
• Repent of trying to earn what cannot be earned.
• Repent of failure to appreciate the magnitude of the gift given us.
• Stand firm in the freedom bought at such a high price.
• Refuse to pick up the yoke of law-keeping from which we have been freed.
• By faith, take his yoke, spread your wings, hold on to grace, put the car in gear.
How? By daily surrender and acknowledgement of our need and time in the word ,which is the basis of faith, and prayer ,which is the expression of faith, and fellowship, which is the encouragement to and application of faith.
