Galatians 5 - Freedom to Love
Tom Shrader examines Galatians 5:1-15, explaining how Christ has freed believers from the bondage of trying to earn salvation through works like circumcision. He emphasizes that this freedom is not license for sin but empowerment to love and serve others. The teaching contrasts law-based religion with Spirit-led Christianity, showing how genuine faith produces love for others as the fulfillment of God's law.
“Right doctrine produces right living - if this stuff doesn't work itself out in the classroom, doesn't work itself out at work, doesn't work itself out in your life, then you haven't learned it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Galatians
Recorded: 2012
Duration: 53 min
Themes: freedom, love, service, grace, faith, works, spirit, bondage, struggling with legalism, new believer, feeling burdened by rules, seeking spiritual freedom, religious background, works based mindset, perfectionist tendencies, confused about grace
Scripture: Galatians 5:1-15, Galatians 3:24, James 2:10, Galatians 3:10, 1 Corinthians 7:23, Romans 8:2, 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Corinthians 11
Theological Themes: justification, sanctification, legalism, spiritual freedom, works righteousness, spirit led living, law and gospel, christian liberty
Full Transcript
I want to turn to Galatians chapter 5. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 632. The guys will be working their way down the aisle.
I didn't teach last Sunday, but I did come to the 4 o'clock service. So I got to hear Tim's explanation of what happened. So now I can tell you the truth. It started two weeks ago Sunday. I really felt awful. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, I felt really bad with a lot of pain symptoms. But Wednesday morning was particularly bad, and I was just struggling.
In fact, I had a meeting with Tim and Neil, and I spent the entire time struggling for my words. My cardiologist called, and I said, "Here's what's going on." He said, "I want you to go to the emergency room." I said, "No, I'm not going to the emergency room." He said, "You just need to go down there. I'll take care of it."
So long story short, we didn't put a lot of drama in it. It wasn't a lot of drama. They did all sorts of tests, because I've had these symptoms for two years - a lot of numbness on my left side, all the classic things. When they were all done, the heart muscle is strong, but one of the arteries is essentially 95% closed, along with some other things. They fixed that one artery and opened it up. There are some other things that we're certain we can fix with diet and exercise. He seemed more certain of it than I did. I said, "There has to be a pill for this." So now I have a feeling he and I are going to get close again.
A New Experience and Your Response
I was in the hospital. I'd never been in the hospital - that's pretty amazing at age 62. I'd never been in the hospital before. I spent two nights there, and it was great team, great nurses. You all were awesome because here's what you did: nothing, which is what I always like to have from you - just prayer and support. You all checked in with the girls.
It was really weird because Haley was out of town, and we'll talk about that next week. We didn't tell her. I just didn't think it was fair to tell her until it was all done. I figured if I died, she wouldn't be mad that we didn't tell her. And if I was okay, she'd forget that we didn't tell her. So we didn't tell her. Everything worked out great. I don't know, we're goofy. That's what makes this work. I'm just like you. I did what you would have done: something stupid. So it was ideal. It was perfect.
Anyway, we got through it. We're back. I was back at work Tuesday. One of the things we've done over the years, and we learned our lesson with Susan, is we understand the public part of our life. You all are really good to give us some level of privacy, though not a lot. But big things we talk to you about. So I'll keep you apprised. If there's anything other than "I'm fine," I'll tell you. You'll hear it from here. If you hear anything other than what I tell you, then it's not accurate. I'll give you the truth as you need to know. That's how we'll handle that.
The Structure of Galatians
Here we go. Week one. In the book of Galatians, we said the book divides into three sections: chapters 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6. The first section is biographical. Paul is defending his apostleship and his teaching against the Judaizers who are coming in and saying Paul's preaching a false gospel. Paul's gospel, by the way - let me just remind you, although we've been through this every week and again today - is that salvation is by grace through faith. I'm justified by faith alone.
The second section is theological. That's Paul explaining his message of justification by faith in chapters 3 and 4. Then chapters 5 and 6 - so we're in chapter 5, verse 1. We're beginning this last section. It's application. It's ethic. It's the daily application of this theological truth.
Right Doctrine Produces Right Living
I just simply wrote this phrase, and if you've been around here for any length of time, you've already heard this from us: Right doctrine produces right living. When we talk about theology, we don't talk about academic theology. We talk about practical theology. If you think of it as a science class, we have the classroom, but we have the laboratory. This is not just an endeavor to see how much theology you can learn. The way you know you've really learned it is if it transforms your life. So the only way we know that is a transformed life. Changed lives change lives.
The gospel comes, and it doesn't just change our destination - meaning you were going to hell, now you're going to heaven. It doesn't just change your designation - meaning you were a sinner, now you're a saint. It changes the way you live. If this stuff doesn't work itself out in the classroom, doesn't work itself out at work, doesn't work itself out in your life, if it doesn't do that, then you haven't learned it. That's what the Spirit of God does.
Sunday Morning Routine and the Big Point
Today, I get it. You all know my schedule on a Sunday because I talk about it all the time. I'm here by about 4:30 on Sunday morning, and then I'll get everything the way I want it. I'll go get my coffee, then I'll start. Carrie comes in about 5:00 and asks, "How's everything going? Is there anything you need?" Nope, I'm set. Then between 5:00 - usually it's this, although today it was reversed - about 5:50, Tim gets here. About 6:00, Neil gets here. They flipped today. Don't know why.
We'll have a few-minute conversation. We'll talk sports, what did we do this weekend, whatever that is, and then back to study. Always Tim will say, "What's the big point today?" The big point is this: I'm saved by grace through faith. Now, if you've been with us for the past nine weeks, that's...
Paul comes back to this over and over and over again. And it's not because he doesn't have anything else to say. It's because this is the gospel itself. This is the essence of the Christian faith. This is what it means to be Christian.
So it's a combination primarily. What makes me a Christian is what I believe, which will affect how I behave. So I'll hear this, "Bob's a strong Christian man." Well, what does that mean? He bench presses 300? I don't know what that means. He's a good father. He's a good husband. He's a good boss. That's not what makes you a Christian. What makes you a Christian is that you trust Christ and Christ alone for your salvation. That's what makes you a Christian.
When that's in place, those other things begin to follow. But you've got a whole bunch of secular humanists that are good husbands and good fathers and good business guys. So the Christian faith is about what we believe. And ultimately, it affects how we behave.
The Freedom Christ Provides
Now, if you look today, we're going to look at verses 1 through 15. You'll see in verse 1 and verse 13 the word freedom. So we're going to talk a lot about freedom, a lot about bondage. We're going to do the opposite of that in verse 1, slavery.
So let's just read verse 1, and we're just going to work our way through this. And I can tell you, we're going to camp on verse 1. We'll look at verse 2, 3, and 4 together, spend some time on verse 5 and 6. Verse 7 and 8 we'll talk about. And we'll close by spending the last 15 minutes or so on verses 13, 14, and 15.
So Paul writes this in verse 1: "It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery."
Now, words almost sound odd. "It's for freedom that He set us free." Maybe He said it another way. Here's Eugene Peterson paraphrasing verse 1: "Christ set us free to live a free life." Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 23, "You were bought at a price. Don't enslave yourself to men." And that's exactly the idea that Paul has here in verse 1.
The Galatians' Situation
These were a group of people who were saved by grace through faith, but they were now submitting themselves back under the law. Remember, that's what we saw. Peter comes. He's spending time in Galatia. He's hanging out with these Christians. And then all of a sudden, the Judaizers come, and here's what they say. They're saying that to truly be a follower of Christ, truly be converted, truly be a Christian, you must become a Jew too. And so for the men, that meant circumcision.
So here's what we see. Week after week after week, we've seen this contrast to what we've talked about last week. It was Hagar versus Sarah. It was Ishmael versus Isaac. Teed up for these eight weeks. It's the children of Satan versus the children of God. It's the commandments or the law versus the promises. It's the wrath of God versus the mercy of God. It's bondage versus freedom. Flesh versus spirit. Lostness versus salvation.
True Freedom Defined
When we talk about freedom, that really resonates in the good old U.S. of A. When He's talking about freedom here, He's talking not just about our personal freedoms. In fact, when we talk about freedom, it's almost contrary to the way, I'm afraid, a lot of us see it in the culture.
John Stott says it this way: "Freedom from my silly little self in order to live responsibly in love for God and others." Freedom is not just merely do whatever you want to whomever you want, with whoever you want, when whoever you want. It's not to take your life and jettison anything that would encumber you so that you can do whatever it is you want to do.
It's to be so free, and in this case, from religion and the bondage of sin, to be so free that I voluntarily now enslave myself to Christ. That's how Paul identifies himself over and over again. I'm a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. A bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Problem with Circumcision
So look at verse two and three: "Behold, I, Paul, say to you, that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you, and testify to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole law."
So Paul says this. Here's what God's done. We'll talk about this idea of circumcision in a minute. Just grab this. It's what we've looked at in the previous weeks when we talk about law. We'll come back and we'll unpack it, but it's simply the idea of circumcision is my effort to satisfy a holy God and to somehow pay a price for my sin.
Freedom from Sin and Death
So Paul says in these verses, we're freed from sin, especially the guilt of sin, and we're free from death, that we understand, especially as we come toward Easter now. When Peter delivers the first message that's recorded in the book of Acts in the second chapter, he said, Christ rose again, putting an end to the agony of death, not the process of dying.
When I was in the hospital, there's all sorts of people in there that are dying. I happen to be one of them, too. We're all dying. But some of them are dying, agonizing deaths. It's not the physical agony, but it's the uncertainty of it that I could know that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord and free from the bondage of sin. I'm no longer under its restriction.
Jesus came and lived and died, and in doing so, He conquered sin and He conquered death. One author writes this, and it's pretty cool: "He has freed us from the law's deadly curse against my sin. He kept the law we couldn't keep. He paid the penalty we couldn't pay. He won the victory we couldn't win." Therefore, Romans 8:2, "The law of the spirit of life has set me free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death."
Free from the yoke, you see it in verse one, of slavery. So let's make sure we get this. And I got that for 90% of you, this is repetitive. I got it. But I didn't write it, Paul did. So apparently He thinks we need to go through this again and again and again. I come into this world separated...
from God because of my sin. That's why by nature, I'm a child of wrath. So you can go over—I got out of the service and I was walking over to say hello to some people, and I walked down the children's corridor and there's two, three, four, five-year-olds right in there. If you ever doubt the sinfulness of man, all you have to do is walk right down that corridor.
There are these little munchkins who at age two or three when they can begin to talk, they say things like "mine," "me," "no." They just say them. You don't teach them that, they just say it. Why do they say that? Because by nature, they're sinners. That's who we are by nature.
Two Approaches to God
So the quest for us then is how do I take me as a sinful person and put it in right relationship with the Holy God? And you got two basic answers. Paul's dealt with them over and over and over again. And today he uses the imagery of circumcision.
You have two basic approaches. One is to say God will solve the problem. The other is to say I'll solve the problem. Now when he talks about circumcision in verse two, he says if you receive circumcision, then all of a sudden you benefit nothing from Christ's death. He doesn't benefit you. And also, you're now back under the law.
So that's what he said about circumcision. Circumcision is me trying to satisfy God with my own works. Christ, on the other hand, represents God's achievement. Circumcision is the idea that I must do something. Christ is the idea of grace and faith and freedom. Everybody has to choose one of these.
A Personal Example
So don't get hung up on the idea of circumcision. Here's what it represents: it represents man's effort to appease the Holy God. Let me be autobiographical. Now every time I do this, it lights up emails and you get all excited about this and you want to discuss and you want to debate. I'm a heart patient. I don't have time for that right now. So don't start sending me a bunch of emails. I'm going to that delete button fast. That delete button got bigger this week.
Here's the deal. I'm talking about me, Tom. Born, raised Catholic—grade school, high school, college. Now I have friends who want to debate this with me, but I don't know how you can debate my own experience. My experience was that I was told over and over again, Jesus died for sin, but you have to do something. There's something you have to do in order to be saved.
Now I have all sorts of friends who want to argue with that. I'm just telling you, that's what the church teaches and that's certainly the practical application of it because if there wasn't something for me to do humanly, then you wouldn't have things like penance and indulgences and all the things that go with it. You just wouldn't.
So you got first Fridays. My dad died. You had a bunch of people spending a bunch of money on masses for his soul. Well, my dad died. He's either in heaven or hell at that moment. You can have masses till the cows come home. It isn't going to change a thing one way or the other. Salvation is by grace through faith.
Biblical Christianity vs. Human Achievement
And so you will have people—this is biblical Christianity. Now, let's make sure we get that. That's what Paul's teaching: biblical Christianity. I simply trust in the finished work of Christ. Christ died and in doing so, He paid the price for our sin and we in essence activate that when that grace is given to us. The reality is God activates it, the reality is our faith. The other side is me activating things.
So it may be something like I just said. I was taught that Christ died for my sin but I had to do something. We quoted from the Mormon webpage a couple weeks ago where in essence, they're saying Jesus died to save us and now we achieve salvation by obedience. Well, those are mutually exclusive. Either He saved us or He didn't save us.
When Christ died on the cross, He did not make salvation possible. He actually died for people. He either died for some or he died for none. That's a big difference.
I absolutely can imagine some of you beginning to—you look like me in a geometry class. You're glazed over going, "What difference does it make?" It makes a huge difference. One is human achievement, one's divine achievement. One is God's plan, one is my plan.
The Purpose of the Law
So if you turn back in your Bible, chapter three, verse 24—by this point, should be circled or marked up or underlined or yellowed or green or whatever it is you do. "Therefore, the law has become our tutor." So the law—God didn't give us the Ten Commandments to keep and achieve salvation because no one can keep them. We've already broken them and the standard is perfection. If you break a law, you break the law.
The whole point of the law was to lead us to Christ so that we'll be justified by faith. That's exactly the point James makes in James chapter two, verse 10: if I keep all the law but stumble over one point, I've broken the whole law.
The Impossibility of Being Good Enough
So if I say—or you say, I'm not going to say it because it's foolish, I'll let you say it—if I want to somehow make God happy with me, then here's the standard. It's not "be good" because that always gets ugly because it's "how good?"
And this is how my mind worked. I don't know that anybody taught me this, but this is how my mind worked. What I can see—and this by the way I think is what most people believe—is that somehow God had a prototype computer (don't know how this worked), and everything I did in my life was recorded in a column that was either good or bad. And then at the end of life He'd hit a button and if there was more bad than good I went to hell, more good than bad I went to heaven.
Well by the time I was in college I took my own inventory and the bad stack was so high that I said I've got no shot—let's just see how bad that bad stack can get. And the yoke of slavery was "be good." How good? And when you understand, this is why you trying to make God happy on your own will never work, because the standard is perfection. And if you take the biggest saint in the world who's never
No one's perfect. We hear it all the time in the Bible, right? Nobody's what? Perfect. If nobody's perfect, we just acknowledge it right there. You can't do it. That's the whole point of this.
So when you talk to people, you get on a fashion square, you interview a hundred people, you say what do I have to do to go to heaven? The dominant answer is be good. Well good by whose standards? God's standard is not be good. God's standard is be perfect. Let me help you out—you didn't make it. That's the whole point, and that's what Paul's fighting against.
The Curse of the Law
That's what he says in verse 3. If you want to now go back under the law, understand what you're doing, because you're climbing into a situation that is filled with condemnation. In fact, you are cursed under the law. It's chapter 3 verse 10: "for as many are as works of the law are under the curse. Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things that are written."
So if perhaps God has you here today, for whatever reason—you're driving by, you saw a sign, you went on the website, somebody brought you, who knows? God has you here for a reason. And it may be to hear this, and maybe be able to hear it for the very first time: I want to give you relief. Because you're trying to be good enough to please God, and you feel like you aren't good enough. The reason you feel that way is you aren't good enough. And I don't want to give you any hope that you'll ever be good enough. You won't be.
But Christ died, and it's as simple as this. It's as simple as believing that when Christ died, He died for me. And I put my faith and trust in Him. I'm justified—it's a legal term. I'm declared righteous before God based on what Christ did, not based on what I did. Based on His grace and His mercy that's extended to us. And when I add works to it, all I do is negate the work of Christ.
The Babe Ruth Baseball Illustration
I read a great illustration. There was a guy whose great-grandfather and then his father had passed down to him a baseball. And it was autographed by Babe Ruth. It's not like now—now everybody is into this. So everybody's with Sharpies and all the stuff that goes with it. So this guy, it's now two generations away, the baseball didn't mean much to him. Some people told him it was worth a lot of money. So he thought, well, I'll sell the ball. But over the years, obviously, the thing had faded.
So before he went down—I know you can see where this is going—before he went down to turn it in, he got his pen and went over the Babe Ruth. And obviously he found out just what you already know: the ball has no value. That's what it is when—that's what Paul says to these guys. When you say Christ died for me, but I'm going to add to it, it's like writing over Babe Ruth. You've negated the whole thing. It isn't of any value to you at all.
And by the way, when he gets to verse four, he says, "and you've been severed from Christ." He's not talking about losing our salvation there. He's talking about the foolishness of coming to Christ in repentance and faith, and then putting yourself back under the law. It would be like after the Civil War, if you're a slave that's been freed, and then show back up to be a slave the rest of your life. He said, this is just silly.
Led by the Spirit
Verse five and six: "For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither the circumcision nor the uncircumcision means anything, but everything means faith through working through love."
So here's what he's teaching. We live a life that's powered by the Holy Spirit. Remember the quote from last week? Legalists are led by the law, hedonists led by the desires, materialists led by their possessions, but Christians are led by the Spirit. And we're going to see that next week.
Look at verse 16. This is where we're going to start next week. "For if I say, I walk by the Spirit, I won't carry out the desires of the flesh." Verse 18: "If you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law." And if I'm led by the Spirit, verse 22, I'll know it. How will I know it? I'm going to see that fruit there: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
So he says, if I'm a follower of Christ, I'm led by the Spirit, I'm living by faith, and I'm in this process of waiting. I'm in this process of what God is going to do in my life.
The Crucial Difference
Now again, let me just make this point before we move on. It may seem like a small thing to you, especially if next week we start talking about, if you're a Christian, I'll see it. I can get somebody saying, "Wait a minute, isn't it functionally the same? If I say I believe, and I work, and I've got them over there in combination, and now I have them over here in combination, what difference does it make?"
One is a man-centered gospel that says my works matter. The other is a God-centered gospel that says anything I do that's good is a result of God's work in my life. That apart from Him, I can't do anything.
So when we say to you that Christianity is primarily what we believe, and we're saved by faith alone, it's that old adage: we're saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves us is never alone. It's accompanied by a life transformation. If you say Jesus is the Lord, I ought to see it. If you say I'm a follower of Christ, it should be evident.
The Evidence of Joy
And let me tell you one of the simple ways: joy. One of the stark contrasts—and you get the heaviness of it when he talks about the yoke of slavery, the bondage of sin, the bondage of the law—all of a sudden I understand, wait a minute, this is not based on my work but on what Christ did. All of a sudden there's a freedom, there's a joy in the midst of that. All of a sudden there's a spirit of thanksgiving.
If you think that you did something that resulted in God saying, "You're good," you're going to always take credit for something. It may only be the mustard seed of faith, but you're going to be pretty excited
about that mustard seed. But if you go, no wait a minute, He did it all. He saved me in spite of me, not because of me. It's going to practically change everything.
A.W. Tozer said it this way: here's the problem with our theology, it doesn't ascend high enough or descend low enough. It doesn't get high enough because if I'm thinking I'm making a contribution, then God's not as big as He really is. It doesn't descend low enough because I think if I'm making a contribution, I don't see how sinful I really am.
Understanding Our Sinfulness
That was one of my big concerns, and this sounds really stupid, I know. But as a father of two girls, and essentially for all their lives I've known Christ, and they are both good girls. Both of them around age five made a profession of faith. Neither of them wandered away, neither has really caused us to speak of any sort of trouble.
Haley especially—Haley could have raised herself, I say that all the time. She was like a Chia kid, you just add water to her. If you couldn't raise Haley, you'd just suck as a person. Now, Sarah was a little more like me, but even Sarah, she'd push you and push you, but man, you'd sit down and she'd go, I'll do it, I don't agree with it, but I'll do it.
Here was my biggest fear with them, is they wouldn't understand how sinful they really are. They'd actually think they were good. But boy, when you understand how sinful you are, all of a sudden that changes everything. God gets bigger and bigger and bigger. You get smaller and smaller and smaller.
Running the Race Well
Verse seven: "You were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? And this persuasion did not come from him who calls you." He said, you were doing fine, but now you've stumbled along the way. That imagery of running is something that Paul uses over and over and over again. He talks about running the race, using a lot of athletic imagery.
We point out really quickly that by and large, the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. I was watching an interview, and if I could think of the name, I'd give it to you, but it was a gal who ran in the 2008 Olympics, and she lost a medal by one one-thousandth of a second. Think about that. And she said, "I lost it at the start. I just had a slow start."
Rarely do you hear somebody in a marathon say, "I lost it at the first beginning, those first few steps." It's not just about how fast I start with Christ, it's how I finish with Christ. These all sound like bumper stickers, don't they? But it's true.
He said, you're running in such a way, and something has hindered you. When they ran, and you see a track meet, they run now in a track in an oval. In that day, they ran to a post, and then turned around and came back. One of the strategic moves in a race was how fast you could cut off the other person at the post. What they're saying is somebody's come in, and they've hindered you from obeying the truth. And that could mean the truth of salvation, that could mean the truth of God providing this instruction and power.
Our Creed and Our Conduct
John Stott writes this: "Our creed, in other words, what we believe, is expressed in our conduct, and our conduct is derived from our creed. Christianity is not simply something we know, it's something we do. It's not merely a belief in a system or a moral code, it's a theology that comes to life."
He said, somebody's come along, they've cut you off. It's somebody's, and He says verse eight, it's not the one who called you. Paraphrasing verse eight: This detour does not come from the one who called you into the race in the first place. This is from somebody who's come back in, the Judaizers.
The Destructive Nature of Sin
And I know a couple things about them, He says. It's destructive, the effect they're having. Look at verse nine. He uses imagery the Jew would get, the idea of leaven, it's a picture of sin. It takes just a little leaven, and it leavens the whole lump of dough. You get just a little leaven in, and it affects the whole lump. You get a little sin into the person, sin into the church, and pretty soon now, everything is affected by it.
He said, here comes this, and it's super destructive. It's like that cancer cell. It's a single cell. It expands from there. It metastasizes, spreads through the whole body. That cell that started in one isolated place now spreads throughout the entire body.
He said, here's this sin. This is not a simple sin. That's why you need to deal with sin in such a radical way, in your own life. Here we go. How much sin is it safe to have in your life? It's like water. If the city of Gilbert said, "Don't be alarmed. The water supply is 90% pure." Yeah, really, 90%? That doesn't seem right. How much of that does it take? And that's all He's saying.
God's Confidence and Protection
He said, here's what I can tell you about these people. Number one, coming into the body, it's super destructive. Number two, I have confidence, verse 10, in you, that you won't adopt this, and that these people will be judged by this. That God's going to deal with this. That God is a jealous God, protective of His church. Don't know when, don't know the timing.
I'm driving—you know, I tend to be a creature of habit. So I tend to drive the same way on Thursday morning, up to the study I'm doing, and I'm going over McDonald, and there's the church there, and it's got the little clever little board out front that they change every week with some pithy little thing. And this week said, "God is waiting for you." Really? How long's He going to wait?
I think I've told you before, I'm in this prayer, I haven't been a Christian very long, I'm in this prayer circle, so we start to my left, we're going all the way around. So I'm going to be the last one to pray, which is always the worst place to be, because all the good prayers are taken by the time it gets to you. I've prayed about everything there is to pray. "Amen, okay. Father, I just echo what was..."—that kind of thing. So the guy before me prays, "God, thank you for your infinite
Freedom Without Responsibility
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, and God is a patient God. But we see Him with Ananias and Sapphira - His patience ran out. We're told in 1 Corinthians 11 that apparently there were some in the church who died because of their sin. God ultimately judges, and God's not messing around either. By demonstrating patience, sometimes we feel that perhaps He's tolerant, that He's going to overlook sin.
Verse 11 seems weird to me. "Brethren, if I still was preaching circumcision, why am I being persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross would have been abolished." All we can conclude from this is that one of the accusations against Paul, which is exactly the opposite of all the accusations in chapters one and two, is that he was preaching that circumcision was needed for salvation. So apparently that rumor's going around.
It's kind of like if you're a political junkie - you start with twelve guys and you're down to four and pragmatically down to two. Once it gets at this point, you just start throwing everything at the other guy. Before, there are too many targets. Now, you're focused. It doesn't even matter - you fire this stuff, and the idea is something's going to get through.
So apparently the opposition to Paul is totally out there. One's saying he's teaching salvation by grace through faith. The other said he's requiring circumcision. Paul deals with this in the most logical way: If that's true, why was I persecuted? If I'm teaching that, then why did they stone me? Why did they beat me? That makes absolutely no sense at all.
There's a little bit of sick humor here. Paul says, "I wish that those who were troubling you would even mutilate themselves" - cut themselves up, cut themselves apart, be cut off.
The Call to Freedom
Let's look at verses 13, 14, and 15. "For you were called to freedom, brethren. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another."
Paul comes along here talking about the idea of freedom. He says here comes freedom - let's look at it negatively: Don't use it as an opportunity for selfishness. Positively: Let's love one another.
I want to go back to that freedom again. In our country, we talk about "land of the free and home of the brave." We talk about free market, free trade, and free enterprise. Franklin Roosevelt enunciated four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. I'm not sure I like freedom coming from government.
Whatever freedom means, it doesn't mean to act any way you want, regardless of the things around you. Here's the simple sentence: The trouble comes whenever and wherever freedom is without responsibility.
Examples of Freedom Without Responsibility
You had two things this week - and by the way, this is not political. I'm a heart patient, so don't write me a bunch of emails on this. You got the Georgetown Law student who wants her insurance to pay for her birth control. First of all, it's not a very good idea, and I'm not sure I'd want to testify before Congress about what I'm engaged in and wanting everyone else to pay for it. You're a thirty-year-old woman. But it's the idea of "I have the right to birth control."
This is worse: the woman who won a million dollars in the lottery and still wants her food stamps. Her argument is - and you can't really fight with this - "I don't have a job. I have two houses, and I don't have a job." It seems obvious to me that we may not want to give her food stamps. But she's dead serious: "These are my rights."
No one's even asking the question: if you're on food stamps, what are you doing buying lottery tickets? When you pay people to not work, guess what? They won't work. I want to help people who need help, but do you see the attitude? The attitude is "You owe me. I'm free."
This is why the country's in trouble. We have 47% of American households that get a check from the government every month. We're not looking for change - it's "What about me? What about me?" That becomes the freedom: "What about my freedoms, my way? The heck with you."
We've got really bad government by really bad people. The reason they're really bad is because you're really bad and you elected them. They're there going, "Here's what I'll do for you." It's never about what's right. It's about "What can I do for you? What are you going to get me?" You can't have 320 million people all saying, "What about me, what about me, what about me?"
Now, that is not at all what Paul's talking about. But I thought I'd get that in there because it felt like it needed to be said. That's not even editorial - that's just the truth.
with that stuff. Here's what Paul's saying. Now, God comes along and says, "I'll give you freedom. Whosoever in Christ is free indeed." Now, don't do something stupid by using verse 13 as an opportunity for sin. So you're free, you're forgiven. That's not a license to go and sin. I'm free from the bondage of sin to serve Christ.
We'll look at it next week. Am I led by the flesh? If so, then I'm going to see all sorts of things in there. You can see them if you want to just glance at verse 19, 20, 21. Or if I'm led by the spirit, verses 22, 23. They're a huge contrast to one another.
The Measure of Love
So He said, here's kind of a good rule of thumb. Love your neighbor as yourself. Now, we have to run in and go, that's not a command to love yourself. Paul's not saying here, have a healthy self-esteem and love yourself. Here's what He's pointing out. You already love yourself. That's the most natural thing in the world, to love yourself.
Let me read to you from the study guide we provided for you. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is not a command to love yourself. It's a command to take your natural, already existing love of self, and make it the measuring rod of your love for others. There's not a harder command in the Bible than this.
It means wanting to feed the hungry as much as you want to feed yourself when you're hungry. This is, by the way, I'm going to read this to you. This is brutal. This is like killing you here. It means wanting to find your neighbor a job as much as you're glad to have a job. Wanting to help your fellow student get an A as much as you want to get an A. Wanting to help the person stalled on the freeway as much as you're glad you're not stalled. Wanting to give the poor softball player a chance to play as much as you want to play. Wanting to share Christ with your neighbor as much as you're glad to know Christ yourself.
It's to use all your creativity and energy and perseverance to do good things for others as you use them in doing good things for yourself. To care about what happens to others as much as you care about what happens to yourself. Can you imagine what the church would be like if we were like that, looking out for the other person, the one to our left or right, and feeling the same longing for their happiness as we feel for ourselves? Isn't that amazing? That's all He's saying. He's saying this becomes the driving point. All of a sudden, I'm moving by love. All of a sudden, it's the love of God. The love He has for me and now my love for Him, and if I really love Him, it will be evident to the people around me.
The Danger of Lovelessness
Let me deal with verse 15, come back to it. Verse 15, He says, "But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you shall not be consumed by one another." Let me read you one of the paraphrase. "If you bite and ravage each other, watch out, in no time at all, you will be annihilating each other." So if I'm not operating in love, I'll begin or will begin to just eat each other. Lovelessness becomes destructive.
Love Defined in 1 Corinthians 13
I want to go back to this. Turn to page 623 or 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I'm not sure, I probably should go back or somebody, one of you can tell me. I don't remember when I taught the book of 1 Corinthians. I do remember that in the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, that when we got into the definition of love, I became swept away in verse seven, but let me read this to you.
1 Corinthians 13, you know it, many of you, at least, not so much maybe anymore, but certainly in the old days, they would read this all the time at weddings and it's the love chapter, it's the definition. Paul gives us 15 characteristics of love, eight stated negatively, seven stated positively. And I think in the middle, kind of tucked away there, is really the idea of love, real love.
So here's what He says. "Love is patient," we'll talk more about this next week when we get to the fruit of the spirit. "Love is patient, love is kind," there's the positive, negative. "It's not jealous, doesn't brag, it's not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly." Now in your Bible, you should circle the next phrase. That's the linchpin, that's what's holding this together. "It doesn't seek its own," there's the definition of love. I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about you. I'm not thinking about my agenda, I'm thinking about yours. "It's not provoked, it doesn't take account of wrong suffered, it doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth."
And we'll spend five minutes here on verse seven. "It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things." And when we went through this, when we taught it, and this may be the third or fourth time we've gone back to it, I am really struck by how amazing a family would be, a business would be, a church would be, the world would be, if this is how we treated one another. We said really loved one another.
Everybody's into that, love, love, love, all you need is love, love makes the world go round, love, love, love. Well the love that Paul's talking about in biblical love is way different than you meeting my needs. It's me thinking about you, not me. And He says in these human relationships that it's bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things.
Love in Action
So let's get ready for summer camp. Summer camp is what, 70, 80, let's say 10 weeks away. Maybe a little more, 11 weeks away. So I'll say look up here, let me just read to you now. Love bears all things. Bear means to cover, to support, to protect. Love bears all things, it's protecting others from exposure or ridicule or harm. This sets me off like a rocket. Genuine love does not gossip or listen to gossip. Imagine that.
Or it believes all things. In addition to bearing all things, it believes all things. Love is not suspicious or cynical. It believes the best outcome. It hopes all things. Even when belief in the loved one's goodness or repentance is shattered, love still hopes. When it runs out of faith, it holds
onto hope. As long as God's grace is operative, human failure's never final. God would not take Israel's failure as final. Jesus would not take Peter's failure as final. Paul would not take the Corinthians' failure as final. Let me stop and add to it: God doesn't take your failure as final.
And then it endures all things. The word means literally to endure. It's a military term referring to an army holding a strategic or vital position at all costs. Every hardship, every suffering. Love holds fast to those it loves. It endures all things at all costs. It stands against overwhelming opposition and refuses to stop bearing or believing or hoping or loving.
A Simple Illustration of Gossip's Harm
Here's what happens when you read this: we think big things. Let me give you a little thing that happened this week. I love this illustration because it's absolutely harmless, but it makes a huge point.
I'm walking across campus Wednesday morning. Jamie Rasmussen calls. Jamie is the senior pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church and a friend of mine. When I was in the hospital, I sent a text to Jamie saying I'm in the hospital, no need to worry, not looking for visitors, talk to you later. So when I was out, I called him.
He calls Wednesday morning. He said, "How are you?" I said, "I'm great." He said, "I just heard from two people you had a stroke." Now, I didn't. It doesn't matter, nothing's harmed. But step back: what went into that conversation? What compels a person to want to talk about that stuff? How much of your life is wasted talking about things like that?
What's the motivation? Do you appear really smart? I guess you could, in some convoluted way, say, "I'm going to pass on something that I haven't bothered to verify that turns out to be not true because Jamie would want to know." Isn't that interesting? Doesn't it just reveal a little bit about your heart? Isn't that the interesting thing in all of these stories?
The Culture of Meaningless Information
I cannot, and I don't watch it. I've never watched it. I can't get away from it. If I never hear the word Kardashian again, I'm going to be a happy person. Why do I need to know about these Kardashians?
The sad thing is, you don't know anything about Washington or Lincoln. We got kids that know all the Kardashians and their social security numbers, and they can't tell you who the first president of the United States was. The last statistic I saw was something like 37% of high school seniors can't tell you the first president of the United States. That is not good. But they know the Kardashians.
Now, if you want to just waste your life away on that, I'm fine. But I'm saying it says more about you than it does the Kardashians. Or all this stuff about who wears what.
Love's Overwhelming Power
Here's the way he closes this section: Love bears what otherwise is unbearable. Think about this. Put yourself in a relationship. Maybe it's with your spouse. Maybe it's with your kids. Maybe it's with your parents. Maybe it's with your boss. Where you say, "I really love this person."
Love bears what is otherwise unbearable, believes what is otherwise unbelievable, hopes what is otherwise hopeless, endures when anything less than love would give up. After love bears, it believes. After it believes, it hopes. After it hopes, it endures. There is no after for endurance, for endurance is the unending climax of love.
That's what he's talking about. We're saved by grace through faith. We've made that point over and over again. But that faith is a transforming faith. It doesn't just transform your life, it transforms relationships, it transforms churches.
Imagining a Church That Truly Loves
Imagine us for a second. I know this is never going to happen. I know this is way too big a dream, but let's just say imagine. Imagine if for a second, we really did love one another. We really did care for one another.
Imagine for a second, there were people in your life who you loved so much that you've been praying for them, and you're going to risk a relationship and say, "You know what, I love you so much that I want you to understand that there's salvation in Christ. Will you come with me to Good Friday, Easter?" That's what love is.
Love is action. Love has emotion to it for sure, but it has an action. "For God so loved the world He gave." If you love, your life will be a life marked by giving time, energy, effort, money to the people around you. In some cases, to total strangers.
Oftentimes, I'm going to end up having to love people I don't even like. I can't do it. Perfect. The Spirit does that. That's where we pick up next week.