Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Galatians: A Grace-full Life

Grace and Love...Perfect together

Sermon Series: Galatians: A Grace-full Life

Title: : Grace and Love... Perfect together  Text: Galatians 5:1-15

Introduction: A man worked in a post office. His job was to process all mail that had illegible addresses. One day a letter came to his desk, addressed in a shaky handwriting to God. He thought, "I better open this one and see what it’s all about." So he opened it and it read: "Dear God, I am an 83 year old widow living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had a hundred dollars in it which was all the money I had until my next pension check."  "Next Sunday is Easter, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with. I have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me?"

The postal worker was touched, and went around showing the letter to all the others. Each of them dug into their wallet and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected 96 dollars, which they put into an envelope and sent over to her. The rest of the day, all the workers felt a warm glow thinking of the nice thing they had done.

Easter came and went, and a few days later came another letter from the old lady to God. All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read: "Dear God, How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me?" "Because of your generosity, I was able to fix a lovely dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day, and I told my friends of your wonderful gift. " "By the way, there was 4 dollars missing. It was no doubt those thieves at the post office." (Steve Shepherd)

Mark 10:45 ‘For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’

Galatians 5:13 ‘You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.’

1 Peter 4:10 ‘Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.’

The people in the post office didn’t give that woman the money because they felt they had to. They gave it to her out of compassion. Compassion is love in action.

It’s the basis for our service to one another...and according to 1 Peter 4:10, it’s a gift of God’s grace.

Transition: Open your Bibles to Galatians 5:1 (pg. 888 in the Bibles under the chair in front of you.) For it’s there we will see ‘Grace and Love...perfect together!’

I. Galatians 5:1    Stand firm in grace and live free

Read: Galatians 5:1

Here is Paul’s rallying cry to those who were struggling with how they were going to relate to God. Paul wanted them to: choose Grace! To choose freedom!

Read: Galatians 5:1a

Do you know how important our freedom is? Freedom is the goal of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. It’s therefore the goal of the Gospel. Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead....so that we would be free. Free from what?

·       Free from living under the tyranny of having to earn our way to heaven.

·       Free from having to ‘perform’ in order to maintain God’s  and acceptance.

·       Free from the power of sin over us.

·       Free from the guilt and condemnation of sin.

And according to our text this morning:

·       Free to have faith in God.

·       And free to serve others...in loves.

Transition: Paul is encouraging us to stand in our freedom, because there are severe consequences when we don’t.

II. Galatians 5:2-4    Stand w/o grace and you stand

                                                   w/o Christ

Read: Galatians 5:2-4

Circumcision is not a significant spiritual issue for us today. But there are many things that temp us to compromise our walk in God’s grace. More often then not, they are external things we do that we feel will help maintain God’s love and acceptance of us.

The problem is, very often these very same things become points of pride... ‘This is what I am doing to walk with God.’ Then the unspoken, sometimes spoken next line is ‘And you should be doing them too if you want to be a godly and mature Christian.’ For them God’s free gift of salvation is a loan to be repaid or a debt to be worked off/. And that mentality is not honoring to God as it negates the grace and the ‘freeness’ of His gift.

What are the consequences of giving in to circumcision (or in our case, feeling that we have to perform to maintain God’s love and acceptance?) What are the consequences?

·       Christ will be of no value to you at all.

·       You are obligated to keep the whole Law.

·       You will be alienated from Christ

·       You will fall from away grace.

Whoa! Pretty strong words, pretty serious consequences, wouldn’t you say?

Let me make something clear. I believe God’s Word teaches the eternal security of the Christian. That means there is nothing we can do, once we give our hearts to Jesus, that can disqualify us from forgiveness of sin and a life spent in heaven for all eternity.

Read: Romans 8:1 ‘Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’

Read: Romans 8:38-39 ‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Read: John 10:28 ‘I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.’

With that said, I don’t believe this text teaches against eternal security. But it sure sounds like it, doesn’t it? Sometime, we can’t take what we read in Scripture literally w/o understanding how it fits in to the rest of Scripture. Case in point:

Read: Galatians 5:4 ‘You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.’

The late James Montgomery Boice, a wonderful pastor and great theologian said this about Gal. 5:4

·       ‘The phrase does not mean that if a Christian sins, he falls from grace and thereby loses his salvation. There is a sense in which to sin is to fall into grace, if one is repentant. But to fall from grace, as seen by this context, is to fall into legalism...or to put it another way, to choose legalism is to relinquish grace as the principle by which one desires to be related to God.’

So, here is what I believe Paul is saying:

·       When you live by God’s grace, when you principle way of relating to God is through His grace, you will living by a higher standard, one that is pleasing to God.

·       When you allow yourselves to be circumcised (or feel you have to perform to maintain God’s love and acceptance) you will be living by the Law, when your principle way of relating to God is by works you perform, you will be living by a lower standard, one that is not pleasing to God.

Falling away from grace is stepping down from a life of grace to a life of works. And it will be as if Jesus and all He did had no meaning in your life. 

Make more sense now?

Transition: Paul gets to the heart of his argument in the next 2 verses. Grace, manifested through faith and expressed in love.

III. Galatians 5:5-6   Faith and love’s place in Grace

Read: Galatians 5:5-6

Paul is giving us the positive consequences of a life lived in the higher standard of God’s grace.

Faith! Men and women of faith, mature men and women are able to wait for God to act.

And when they do act, it’s not out of duty to the Law, but out of love, because of grace.

It is through faith that we wait for God’s grace to develop in us a life of righteousness. And as we wait, we serve God and others in love, as a response to God’s grace in our lives.

I realize Paul doesn’t use the word ‘serve’ here but he will in verse 13 and verses 6 and 13 are connected by the word love.

Transition: But we’re not ready to talk about the connection yet. Next, Paul asks the question we all need to ask ourselves: What’s keeping you from living in God’s grace?’

IV. Galatians 5:7-12 What’s keeping you from grace?

Read: Galatians 5:7-12

Paul said that the Galatian Christians started the race well. They started the Christian life by trusting in Christ’s righteousness and living by the higher standard of grace. But someone cut in on them and caused them to slip and fall in their understanding of the truth.

ILL: The 1988 Summer Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles and one of the key events was the race between Mary Decker of the United States, and the South African phenomenon, Zola Budd, who was representing Great Britain. After a few laps Zola Budd attempted to pass Mary Decker and cut in front of her. Somehow she tripped Mary Decker who fell, and was out of the race. Mary lying on the grass in pain, crying with frustration and disappointment. Eventually she was carried off the field, still in shock and disappointment. (Freddy Fritz)

Paul is saying that the Galatians are like Mary Decker. They started the race well, but someone cut in on them and they fell and lost their joy. Bruised and battered, they are being carried off the field of life by works. Where there was once joy there is now discouragement and disappointment.

So it is with everyone who starts the Christian life by grace and then surrenders to works or believes they need to perform to maintain God’s love and acceptance.

·       Joy will be replaced with burden.

·       Delight will be replaced with frustration and disappointment.

·          And serving others from a heart of love and compassion will be replaced by serving others by an obsession to duty.

 

Paul then defends himself and says ‘I no longer preach circumcision since I found Jesus at the cross.’ Then he attacks the Judaizers by saying they will pay the penalty for encouraging the Galatian Christians to choose the Law and live by a lower standard rather than grace and live by the higher standard.

Listen to it again: ‘As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!’

Paul is saying to the Judaizers ‘When you circumcise others, why not go back and circumcise yourself, only this time, I hope the knife slips and you cut it all off.’ I’m sorry for the graphic nature of what I just said, but according to the Greek construction of the phrase, it’s what Paul meant.

Paul is trying to shock his readers, then and now. He is saying legalism (or feeling you need to perform to help maintain God’s love and acceptance is a serious thing. It takes away our freedom and puts us in bondage to what Christ set us free from in the first place. And it keeps us from what’s truly important in life. What is truly important?

V. Galatians 5:13-15     Grace and love lead to service

Read: Galatians 5:13-15

Freedom does not mean the absence of law. The US Constitution promises its citizens ‘liberty’ or freedom, but it gives them laws to ensure they exercise their freedom without hurting themselves or anyone else. God, in His great wisdom, does the same thing.

Read: 1 Corinthians 10:23 ‘Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive.’

Freedom always comes with conditions, and you must have faith in God’s ‘conditions’ and use your freedom responsibly. And one of our responsibilities according to our text is to serve one another.

Remember verses 6 and 13 are connected by the word ‘love. Putting them together Paul says ‘the only thing that counts....is faith expressing itself in love’ ...displayed by serving one another in love.

·       Jesus told us the greatest commandment is to love God above all and to love one another.

·       Paul in Romans 13:8 said ‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law.’

One way we know we are living under God’s grace. The way we know we are living by the higher standard is that we serve one another...because we love them, not because we feel we ‘have to’ in order to maintain God’s love and acceptance.

Conclusion

‘The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.’? What does that mean for us? It means we are

·       Free, no longer under a compulsion to perform in order to maintain God’s love and acceptance.

·       Free, to serve one another.

·       Free, to love one another.

·       Free, to respond to God by a higher standard, grace.

But, according to our text, we are not free to use our freedom to hurt others...Love always trumps freedom....always.

Grace and Love...perfect together!