LOVE

Liberty

Based on the Epistle to the Galatians

Sermon Delivered by Thor Carden

July 7, 2003

Love One Another Gospel Church

Madison, TN

This week I hoped the Lord would use me to speak to you about Liberty. I chose this topic because I thought it would be appropriate for the Independence Day celebration. So in due course I looked up all the verses in the Bible where it mentions the word "liberty" to see what God had to say about it. It was a short enough list where I could read all twenty-five references.

This word study took me places I did not expect to go. So this sermon is about Liberty but it is not anything like what I expected when I started working on it.

PLEASE TURN IN YOUR BIBLES TO I SAMUEL 8

How would you feel if you turned on the news one evening and you found out that Congress had voted to repeal the Declaration of Independence? We changed our minds. Having a king (or I should say Queen in this case) is a good idea after all. We are all running the Union Jack (the British flag) back up the flagpoles tomorrow at noon! You can use the Stars & Stripes for a table cloth or something. We are going to start paying our taxes in pounds and drinking tea in the afternoon.

Sound far fetched? That kind of thing has actually happened!

In 1642 a rebellion started that ended with the execution of the King of England in 1649. The country was ruled by the elected Parliament headed up by Oliver Cromwell for ten years and then they changed their minds and sent a message to William of Orange, a German cousin of the former king, We are real sorry about killing your cousin, will you come be our king in his place. I am not making this up. It really happened.

Nor was that the first time something similar to this happened.

In 1^st Sameul 8, when the prophet Samuel was starting to get old he tried to put his sons in charge of Israel.

I Samuel 8:4-5 "Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations."

Samuel thought a king was a bad idea. When he talked to God about it God agreed it was a bad idea, but, if they want a king, give them a king. Just warn them first.

Then in I Samuel 8:11-17 Samuel tells them how costly it will be to have a King. And then in I Samuel 8:18 "And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day." In other words, you are not going to like having a king but if you get one, you are stuck with him. I Samuel 8:19 "Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;"

So Samuel anointed Saul as King. Can you imagine such a thing? These people wanted a king. Why?

PLEASE TURN TO GALATIANS 4

Why? Why did they want a king to rule over them? They would rather be in bondage to a king, in servitude, than live in liberty and freedom.

Amazing!

Perhaps we should direct that question towards ourselves. We do exactly the same thing - all the time. Why do we allow ourselves to sin? John 8:34 "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."

The Apostle Paul also wondered why.

In Galations 4:9 he asks, " 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?"

A few verses later Paul also asked.

Galations 4:21 "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?"

Why do we, you and I, pick out certain rules and regulations in the Bible and make a religion out of trying to obey them to the exclusion of other scriptures which we ignore or gloss over?

When we are saved, when we surrender to Jesus, we are cleansed of sin by his blood, set free from the bondage of the law. Free from the whole law, not just the sacrificial law. It was all nailed to the cross. You are no longer under the law.

This basic Gospel truth is confirmed over and over again in the Bible. Many of the places where it does are listed for you in the sermon notes. (See last page) Pretty much the entire book of Galatians is devoted to this concept so to make it easier for us today I'll stay with that book for the rest of the sermon this morning.

PLEASE TURN A FEW PAGES BACK TO GALATIANS 1

What I would like to do is walk thru the entire book of Galatians this morning summarizing most of it for you to understand the context and reading and discussing a few passages in some detail.

In Galatians 1:1-5 there is a short greeting and prayer (which includes the Gospel in a nutshell). Paul really lays into them starting in verse 6. He is shocked and surprised that they would pervert the Gospel of Christ. He calls it an accursed perversion and says anybody who preaches it is accursed. He doesn't say what the perversion is but can you imagine stronger terms? "Perverted the Gospel of Christ" and "Accursed."

For the rest of Chapter 1 and well into Chapter 2 Paul reminds them of his apostolic authority and lets them know that on this particular issue he is in complete agreement with the Apostles Peter, John and James calling them pillars of the church. He wanted there to be no doubt in the minds of his readers that he was telling them the absolute, undiluted, honest to God, truth.

As an example he goes into detail about a controversy in the early church about circumcision. The controversy was settled by appealing to a general principle about which there was no doubt amongst them:

Galatians 2:19-20 "For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

My brother, Jarvis, is buried not far from here in the veterans' cemetery near Gallatin Road and Briley Parkway. He has not broken any laws since Sep 8, 1976. He may have neglected to pay a few speeding tickets but he hasn't gotten any more tickets. My parents are just on the other side of the hill from my brother. They haven't broken any laws for several years either. Not man's laws nor God's laws have they broken. Dead people don't break laws.

Neither are they expected to obey the law. Nobody would send the sheriff out to Jarvis's grave to arrest him for not paying speeding tickets.

The old man within us is dead and we have a new life of faith in Christ. We are not in bondage under the law but free in Christ.

In Chapter 3 Paul starts hollering at the Galatians again calling them "foolish" and "bewitched." This is not a letter about this and that and the other thing like Corinthians or Romans or even Ephesians. I believe Paul is angry and has only one thing on his mind.

Galatians 3:2-3 "This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?"

Then Paul goes on to make it clear in verses 10 and 13 of Chapter 3 that he is talking about the whole law, not just sacrificial law, when he reminds them that they did not receive the Spirit by the law.

Galatians 3:10 "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them"

It says "all things which are written in the book of the law" When the Bible says "all things" it means "all things" not some things, not just sacrificial law, not just ceremonial law, not just the things we like or don't like. All means all.

By the same token "every one" means "every one" So in simple terms - every one who doesn't do the whole law is cursed. I think that pretty much means all of us, doesn't it? So what is the cure for the curse, the curse of the law?

Galatians 3:13 "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:"

Christ was made a curse for us and was nailed to the cross. He hung from that tree because of my curse, because of your curse.

There is some true love for you.

Praise the Lord!

The point Paul is making is the curse of "all things" in the law were nailed to the cross, not just part of the curse, or some of the law. All of it.

Paul goes on to explain in the rest of Chapter 3 and the beginning of Chapter 4 why God gave us the law to start with. Things did not start out that way. Abraham's relationship with God was based on faith, not law. God and Abraham had an intimate personal relationship. Thru Jesus Christ, God's has re-established that kind of relationship with us.

The law is for the purpose of bringing us to repentance so that we can have salvation thru the mediator Jesus Christ. Paul likens the law to a schoolmaster training children. In this case, we are God's children. He says that children are pretty much like servants when they are under the tutors and governess's etc. until such time as the Father sets them free. Sort of like graduating from High School.

Galatians 4:4-7 "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

Wow! The Holy Spirit of Jesus is in our hearts praying to God the Father. No more are we servants of the Law but God's own children. Joint heirs with Christ of all that God owns. Furthermore, God Himself died on the cross, the last will & testament has been read, and He left everything to us. Praise Jesus, to God be the glory!

So, Paul, wants to know, why have the Galatians sought to come back under the law?

Galatians 4:8 "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods."

Before they came to Christ the Galatians were a bunch of pagan idol worshipers.

Galatians 4:9-10 "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? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years."

What does this mean? Is this the perversion of the Gospel that Paul is so upset about? "Observing days, and, months, and times, and years." It doesn't sound that bad to me. And what are the "weak and beggarly elements?"

Well, someday I hope to figure out the answer to that question. I studied it a good bit and there is a lot of different opinions out there.

A lot of people think Paul is talking about the Old Testament festivals and customs because the theme of the letter has been freedom from law. Others think he is talking about the Galatians old pagan holidays and practices because of what we just read in verse 8.

If you took all the different theologians that have an opinion about it and put them in a basket and attached a balloon, there would be enough hot air for them to fly.

Either way they are missing the point. Nobody in this church, Love One Another Gospel Church, is worshiping Jupiter or Zeus, or Thor for that matter. Neither is anybody here trying to re-institute Jewish customs. Whatever the Galatians were doing wrong it could only serve as an example to us of a more general principle, a principle that Paul is making abundantly clear.

Then Paul tells them he is only fussing with them because he really loves them and he is worried about them. He closes chapter 4 with an analogy to emphasize the point that we are children of the promise to Abraham, who is the father of all the faithful.

Galatians 5:1 "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

The "yoke of bondage" he is talking about is the law. He uses circumcision as an example to make that point. It may be the Galatians were actually practicing circumcision. It is the second time Paul has brought it up and he does again in the last chapter. I do not think he is necessarily bringing up circumcision so much because that is what they were doing. I think he is bringing it up to make sure that they understood he was talking about all of God's law, not just the Mosaic law. Circumcision was instituted hundreds of years before Moses. If circumcision was what they were doing, it was not all they were doing. Recall the "Observing days, and, months, and times, and years" and "weak and beggarly elements" we just talked about. So circumcision was either an example or an instance. Either way what Paul has to say here applies to "all the law" as we have already seen.

Galatians 5:13-14 "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 neighbour as thyself."

Whoa! Wait a minute here. He just spent the last four and a half chapters telling us we were free from the bondage of the law and now he expects us to obey it, all of it!

Paul goes on to explain in more detail. Listen carefully. This is the core of what Paul was saying what I am trying to say.

Galatians 5:16-18 "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law."

Remember that Spirit of Christ that God put into your heart that we were talking about a few minutes ago. The old man, the one that died when we surrendered to Christ, still lingers on like a zombie in our flesh. He still wants to sin. The Spirit that God put in us, the new man, wants to obey the law. Not only does the Holy Spirit within us want to obey the law, He knows it better than our mind ever could understand it even if we studied the Bible all the time. So we no longer have to worry about the letter of the law. 2 Corinthians 3:6 "Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." We now have the spirit of the Law within us and all we have to do is follow His leading.

Please do not misunderstand me. I do not think Paul was saying we do not need to read and study the Bible. If we have the Spirit within us He will yearn for the reading of the Word. It is the food on which the new man lives.

Continuing in verse 19…

Galatians 5:19 "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these;…"

and then Paul lists a whole bunch of bad stuff. I want to focus on the word "manifest" for a minute. According to the dictionary it means, "readily perceived, easily understood or recognized by the mind. OBVIOUS and EVIDENT.

Because we now have the Spirit within us the nature of evil is obvious to us. You know when you are doing something wrong. You don't have to look it up in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. You know it when you are doing it.

Jeremiah 31:33 "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people."

God's law has been transformed. It went from being something written in a book, albeit a miraculous book, that killed us, to something written in our hearts that gives of life and liberty. And not just life and liberty.

Galatians 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

God's bounty is plenteous! Each of these nine items could be a sermon itself. Do you have plans for this afternoon?

Galatians 5:24-25 "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

We are free of the law. We are free of sin. We are left only with a loving relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Paul closes the book with several exhortations about how best to follow the, "Love your neighbor," command he had already mentioned. He also reminds them of the circumcision issue. I think the key verses in this chapter are

Galatians 6:7-8 "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

Yes, we are free of the letter of the law but not its truth. If we are saved we will go to heaven but there are still short and long term consequences to sin. The more faithfully we follow the leading of the Spirit within us the fewer unpleasant consequences there will be.

So that returns me back to the original question. Why in the world do we once again want to deliver ourselves into the bondage of the law? Why do we sometimes still deliver our bodies up to the slavery of sin? I sure would like to know how the Galatians answered this letter, wouldn't you?

Dear Paul,

The reason we decided to go back under bondage is …

I feel a little like I did when I was a boy and my father would catch me doing something wrong. "Why did you do that?" he would ask. I would just stand there stupidly trying to think of an answer. I never did come up with a good answer. I wish he would have just gone ahead and spanked me and been done with it.

The fact is there is no good answer, only bad answers.

How can we answer this question?

How about "I let the old man get the better of me."

How do you lose a wrestling match with a dead man!?!

"I'm sorry, God. I just forgot how much I love you."

Well, that's nice.

"Lord, I got bored listening to your Spirit so I thought I would try my hand at interpreting the law. I felt my training as a lawyer, theologian, and scholar of ancient languages qualified me to have a better understanding than you, Lord."

That one doesn't work either.

That answer works I think.

This altar is open for you to give your answer to God. It is open for any other business you need to conduct with God, as well. If you like, I will pray with you.