All Sermons

Standfast in Christ By Richard Wilson

 As we proceed through the letter of Paul to the Galatians,
there is a turning point now in his treatment of the law.
He has given many explanations of why the law is so important to the Christian,
and yet it's not the object of our faith.
The object of our faith is the Lord himself, not the law.
The law is merely a reflection of the righteousness of God,
and in that it cannot give life.
It is only the Lord Jesus Christ himself that can give us life,
and our faith should not be in various things
that relate to true religion,
but we should be going to the author and the finisher of our faith.
And so he's given many compelling arguments.
The Galatians are turning from the Lord Jesus Christ,
in terms of faith, to Judaism,
which was buttressed by the law and not by God.
They talked a lot about God, but they did not have faith in God.
Their faith was in Judaism, and all that Judaism represented.
They went so close to the things of God, but they denied the power thereof.
They came to religion, but denied the power of God's Gospel.
And so if we forsake the Gospel in all our religious pursuits,
we have forsaken God himself.
For there is no access to God except through this one Gospel
that Jesus Christ established in history
and in the hearts of everyone who believes,
that we would be those that would be pardoned from our sin,
cleansed from a bad heart,
renewed in our hearts with a heart that is recreated,
a heart that is set to walk in the liberty of the faith,
not merely in the apparatus of religion.
And so that's been the basic thrust of the Apostles' treatment of the law.
The law is good. It is worthy. It is very helpful.
But it is only a diagnostic tool in the spiritual walk with God.
It is not something that is the substance of our faith.
It tells us when we are not looking to God.
It establishes the righteousness of God
that we might be able to judge whether our hearts
are walking in the ways of God or not.
And if we are not walking in the ways of God,
we will not do it by the flesh.
We will do it by another means called walking in the Spirit.
And so the Apostle Paul, now in chapter 5 of Galatians, says,
therefore, on the basis of these things, he says, stand fast.
Now, there's an imperative. It's not the indicative here.
There's an imperative.
Now that you are walking according to this Gospel,
stand fast in it.
Therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free
and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Now, the yoke of bondage is this religious lifestyle
that is looking to something other than the Gospel that gives liberty.
It's only the Gospel that justifies our heart, justifies our lives.
It's only the Gospel that can enter into our lives and gives us eternal life.
It's only the Gospel that can give us that spiritual food from heaven
that is going to sustain us forever.
And so we are to walk as living, not as walking corpses, dead men walking.
So this yoke of bondage that the Lord Jesus Himself concerning
the disciples, when they partook of the bread from heaven, as it were,
at the feeding of the 5,000, they were about to board upon the boat
to go across the Sea of Galilee.
And He said to them, beware of the bread of the leaven of the Pharisees.
He'd beware of not the bread that you've just eaten,
and not to be aware of that, but beware of the leaven
that leavens the true life that we have.
And what they bring in is the additions of religion.
And they really are saying, let's trust in the additions
that is beyond the Gospel that we want to use
as some recommendation before God
and that we earn some kind of privilege before God
by doing things that go beyond the Gospel.
And we trust in these things.
It is so easy for us to be entangled yet again
with the bondage or the yoke of that kind of bondage.
And He goes on, He says, indeed I, Paul, say to you
that if you become circumcised,
now He's using an old badge of identity here,
among the Jews, although it was given to them the circumcision,
the sign of the covenant, the eternal covenant of God
from the days of Abraham,
that identified them as the people or the children of promise,
the children that would receive eternal life
if they lived by faith in the living God.
And unfortunately, circumcision had become a badge of identity
with Judaism rather than a sign and seal of the covenant.
So they misused that which had been given of God
and cast a different meaning to it.
So He was saying in a disparaging sort of way,
even this thing that you rely upon, external circumcision,
as an identity of being a Jew or the people of God
is being so misused that I'm using it in the way
in which it has become used amongst you.
If you become circumcised in this sense,
Christ will profit you nothing.
Now we can do that easily with all the signs of our Christian faith.
We've been brought up in the Christian faith
and we have gone through the passages of life in our Christian faith.
I was confirmed by the bishops.
I was taught in high Anglican rubrics and religious procedures.
Now if they were received by faith,
of course these things would probably have a different perspective altogether.
But I received them as something that I inherited
from my religious background, my family background.
And they profit me nothing if Christ is not in it.
They profit me absolutely, in fact they can be a hindrance
rather than any kind of benefit to me.
And this is exactly what the Apostle Paul was saying.
Christ will profit you nothing.
And I testify against every man who becomes circumcised,
this is pretty strident language,
that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.
Now if you bear the signs of this religion that is not living by faith
and was even rejected by the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
he didn't identify in any way, shape or form
with Judaism.
He only identified that which was biblical,
that was set up by God.
And so he says,
unless you keep the whole law,
and which is impossible to do so,
and absolutely ridiculous,
for you to slip back into Judaism is bondage
and is utterly fruitless.
So he says stand firm,
and I say that we need to consciously,
carefully understand the basis by which we are Christ's,
which is on the basis of the Gospel alone,
who has redeemed our lives from death and brought us into life.
He says we must keep that liberty.
We must not allow ourselves to go into the drudgery of fleshy religion
as good as it might appear,
and as pleasing as it might be to the flesh,
because we think we are doing good things
when we are conforming to religious ideals.
But true liberty is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
He says we have been secured by Christ who has liberated us from what?
Not just to make us good people again,
but he has liberated us from a yoke of bondage.
And that bondage ultimately are two essential things
that no religion has answers to except the Christian Gospel.
The first is that we were born in the condition of death.
We were separated from God before we were born.
We were in a state of original sin
that totally meant that we were blind to the things of God.
We were those that were so crippled we could not walk in the things of God.
And we were deaf to the Word of God.
And that's exactly what the book to the Ephesians says.
And you were made alive who were dead in trespasses and sin.
Now death is not something that is merely non-existence.
Death is being separated from our life source.
Death is no longer receiving the sustenance that's going to sustain life.
Death is an existence in a place that is separated from our life sources.
And therefore when the apostle says you were dead in your sins and trespasses
in which you once walked according to the course of this world
according to the prince of the power of the air
the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience
among whom also you once conducted yourselves the lust of the flesh
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind
and were by nature children of wrath just as the others.
So here we find our condition without the gospel.
Yes we might have flesh that somehow is able to respond to earthly
natural urges of the flesh
but we are separated from God even at the point of death
point of birth.
And the reason for this death is that we are debtors.
Now any of us have got loans out and I've got loans out
I feel very burdened by the prospect of having to pay those back.
Now fortunate to the loans I've got I can pay back in the fullness of time.
But when I'm talking about spiritual things
that it is impossible for me to be able to pay debts
of the outworkings of my condition of death
the kind of the fruits of the flesh
which we see later on in this chapter
which are the lusts of the flesh
that speak of the works of the flesh of adultery
of fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hate
contention, jealousies, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition
dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness and the like.
Now all these things are the products of living without God.
These are the products of the flesh.
And all of which we have to give an account to God
who is righteous and holy
who is altogether good in everything he does
who intended not his creation to work like this
and to produce this kind of behaviour.
And we'll have to give an account for these things.
Now once something that we cannot do anything
cannot even help ourselves doing
let alone pay back the recompense
that is required from all those sins
it is impossible.
And therefore we did not need an educator or a psychologist
that would reorder our matters of our mind
we needed a redeemer that was going to pay the price
of all our debt and liberate us from all the charges
laid against our account.
And it is this what Christ has done for us
in Romans chapter 3 and verse 21.
He says quite clearly that this is what the essential thing
of the Gospel is.
He says,
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law
is revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets
even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ
to all and in all who believe.
For there is no difference.
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
being justified freely by the grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus
whom God sent forth as a propitiation in his blood
through faith and demonstrated his righteousness
because his forbearance God has passed over the sins
that were previously committed.
So we are justified and our sins have been paid out in full
by the Lord Jesus Christ and cleansed us from all unrighteousness
by his precious blood.
Now that is the basis of it.
Now some of us might say intellectually I hold to that.
Yes I know what the Gospel is and I generally hold to it
but faith is that my life depends upon it
and faith says that without Christ there is nothing that I can do
and we are deeply grateful and I am filled with gratitude
for this perfect work that Christ has done on my behalf.
It's not just some sort of intellectual understanding.
It is something that so gripped our hearts
that faith says that this is the basis by which we live
and the reason why I do everything now
is that Christ is at the foundation of this very basic element
that answers these two basic elements of my life.
I was once dead but now I live.
I was once under the condemnation of my own sin
and my conscience has been cleared entirely
by the justifying work of God's grace in Christ alone.
Now if your heart has not been gripped by that
you either do not understand the Gospel
and you've been robbed from the joy of understanding that Gospel
or that you understand the Gospel and it has not been internalized by faith.
And that you are living some kind of general Christian life
that somehow attaches your thoughts to these doctrines
but do not really live them out on the basis of that.
Now that's a very big difference.
We must not let God pass by until our hearts have been gripped by this
and our hearts are given to these things
and it gives us joy upon joy and satisfaction
that these doctrines are at the basis and answer
of my predicament before God without these things.
This is the kind of liberty that we must allow our hearts to muse upon
and be satisfied within.
A general fuzzy commitment to these things is not Christianity.
The Spirit when He does His work within our hearts
we are gripped by not only the understanding
but the reality of these things in our hearts.
As Jacob in Bethel, remember, when he had a vision of God
and the angels coming from heaven on the ladder of Jacob
and descending and ascending from heaven.
And he wrestled with God.
He wrestled with God and he says,
I'm not going to let God go until I've found a blessing with Him.
Now this is what it means to get to grips with the Gospel.
And we must see that established.
And we must see that established.
Christ alone is the only one that can liberate us
from this kind of bondage.
First of all, the condition of spiritual death that we are born into.
And secondly, that the totally unpayable sense of our own sins
that grip us and that we have offended a holy God
and we have got to give an account to that God,
the only answer that we have for that is the redeeming work of Christ in the Gospel.
He gives us new life.
And that new life is life able to first of all repent from our sins.
That's another sign of faith that we begin to repent of our sins.
We abhor our lifestyle without Christ.
And we begin to live by faith in Christ
and we learn more and more about what Christ means to us.
That is a fair sign that conversion and new life
has actually taken root within our lives.
And therefore, to go back to the weak and beggary elements of mere religion,
of mere systems of self-help
and of mind-above-matter type of religion,
which that is all religion is about, if we haven't got the Gospel.
If we are to go back to that kind of thing, because it feels safe
or because we want to identify with the group that is also destined to hell
as well-intentioned as it might appear to be.
The fact is, if it's not rooted in the Gospel, it is destined to destruction.
And he says, to go back and to entangle ourselves with such a yoke
is utter lunacy in spiritual terms, in biblical terms.
He says, to come under condemnation again is a total madness.
And so the apostle says in Romans chapter 8,
he says, there is therefore now no condemnation.
No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are not walking according to the flesh,
but walking according to the Spirit.
And he says, to fall under the spell and the bewitchment
of legalism is, he says, in the second chapter of Galatians and verse 19.
He says, for I therefore, for I through the law died to the law,
that I might live to God and have been crucified with Christ.
And it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.
And the life which I now live in the flesh,
I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
See, that's the life of faith speaking that says that kind of declaration.
And to return back and turn away from Christ in reality is utter folly and lunacy.
And so he goes on, he says, that circumcision as a badge of identity
is an example of your legalism.
If you go back and get circumcised,
see, many of these people were proselytes and they weren't true Jews before that,
but they were probably people who wish they could have been circumcised,
but because they weren't true Jews, they weren't allowed to be circumcised.
They could come and be associated with the true laws of God
and to be associated with the synagogue,
but they were never really allowed into the inner courts.
Because they were not really the children of Abraham, it was said.
Now this is what false religion says.
It makes an exclusivity of the church, of the community of faith.
And the Judeos said,
now, you know, we know that you've come to Christ
and unless you become better Jews as a result of coming to Christ,
you really are not the true children of God.
And then they'd say, well, what does it require us to become true children of God?
I'll get circumcised.
And so they got circumcised of the community.
And as a result, they were redenying the gospel.
Not that being circumcised in the Old Testament way was wrong in itself.
After all, Abraham was called to be circumcised,
but for different reasons.
It was a sign and a seal of the covenant that he was entering into.
And of course we have a sign and seal of the covenant today
in a bloodless outward sign and seal, which is baptism.
But that will not save us.
External baptism will not save us.
Whether you've been baptized on the eighth day after you were born,
it will still not save you.
And neither will it save you if you get baptized as an adult
and you're not a believer.
That won't save you either.
Because no external right will save us.
It is only Christ that will save us.
Circumcision might point us to understand Christ better
and the gospel better.
As baptism will, I know, will teach us these things.
But the outward, visible sign, when it becomes the substance of our faith,
as a badge of identity, will not save us.
Indeed, the apostle clearly says it is an example
that brings you back into the bondage.
Now in verse four he goes on, he says,
that you have become estranged from Christ.
Now here the pastor tells the congregation,
you have become estranged from Christ.
It's a bit like me saying to this congregation,
you are no longer living as Christians.
You have moved away from the gospel.
You are no longer really true members of the Church of Jesus Christ.
See, it's pretty harsh sort of stuff here.
And he says, you have attempted to be justified by the law
and you have fallen from grace.
Now the position of these believers before God
is on the basis of the grace of God that is established in Christ.
Not established by Judaism, not established by the law of Moses,
but established by Christ.
And God's disposition toward these people is one of blessedness and grace,
one of good favor toward us.
And we can always wake up in the morning,
no matter how hard we are struggling in our Christian faith,
no matter how difficult the matters might be,
no matter how far God might feel from us at times,
we can wake up in the morning on the basis of this gospel
and know that God loves us.
And God is always wanting to pour his good favor upon us.
We are not here somehow under the rod of God any longer.
We are under the good favor of God.
And God is always pouring out his blessings,
even when we don't deserve it,
even when things seem to be difficult and hard for us to accept from the hand of God,
God nonetheless is pouring out his mercies and his graces upon us,
even though we don't deserve it.
And that comes to us because we have got our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Before that stage, we might have thought that God was looking after us,
go to the hospital, years gone by,
and the diatribe that these non-believers have concerning their beloved one,
who is not a Christian.
They have all these weird and wonderful things.
Well, God is merciful.
Now, God is not merciful to them.
They are under the wrath of God.
And they should realize that they have been angry with God all their lives.
They have dismissed people that would bring the gospel to them,
and they hate the narrow-mindedness and the holiness of Christians all their lives.
They are enemies of God, and they are under the wrath of God
because they are dead and they are sinners.
And God cannot, if he is a just God,
treat them any differently than being under the wrath of God.
And this is a sad thing.
They do not understand it.
They will not understand it, and yet that is their disposition.
That is what we were like before we became Christians.
And yet in the measure of God's great goodness,
in the fullness of time, in his perfect providential manner,
has brought us to the gospel, and we began to believe,
and we fled from the wrath to come,
and we found our sucker in the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And from that day forward,
even though we are still entangled with so much sin,
in our lives, God's blessing and good favor is always toward us.
Now I find that incredibly useful.
It doesn't matter how difficult I might find it.
God loves me.
Why does he love me?
Not because I'm a human being,
that I've been created here,
but because of the gospel,
and I've found good favor with him.
But he says quite clearly here,
what does it mean here that you've fallen from grace?
Fallen from grace.
You have fallen from grace.
Is it possible to lose our salvation?
Is it possible for us to come under the condemnation of God again?
The scriptures would be against that.
But he does speak of here that you have fallen from grace.
Now this is a fearful thing.
He's talking to Christians.
He's not talking to people that are would-be Christians
or who have come along for the ride for a short time.
He's talking to genuine Christians who have fallen from grace.
And I reckon this should breathe the fear of God back into our souls.
It is possible for us to fall from grace.
Now what does it mean?
I think we should wrestle with it.
If the Galatians, if it's not all of them,
at least it's referring to some of them,
that seek to be justified by the means of the law,
and that their harsh disposition is to do this,
that they are now those who are given to Jewish traditionalism.