Stand in the Freedom of Faith

6 · The pastor explains Paul's central argument in Galatians 5: the law-keeper who blurs sanctification into justification is severed from Christ and grace, while the Spirit unites believers to an active faith

So it's with that that Paul writes, 'For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.' Here's his point in today's passage. The law-keeper The one who blurs sanctification into justification is cut off from Christ and grace. While the Spirit unites believers to an active faith. The law-keeper is cut off from Christ, cut off from grace, cut off from all the benefits of salvation, while the Spirit unites now and continues to unite believers with an active faith. To an act of faith, you could say. Salvation, Paul is saying, either comes through the yoke of the Law or the liberty of Christ. And in this passage, he says you can't have it both ways. Either you're going to pursue salvation through the slavery and tyranny of the Law, or you're going to pursue it through Christ. And there's no middle ground and there's no mingling of the two.

7 · The pastor previews the four-point structure of the sermon, signaling the trajectory of the argument and noting that the final point anticipates future sermons in the Galatians series

I want us to look at 4 points this morning. The 4 points are this: Legalism severs. Legalism spreads. Faith waits. And faith works. Now, Galatians 5 in this first part, they hang together. So we're gonna jump into some of our text again in a couple weeks when we return to it. And we finish through going through verse 15. So some of that last point is really just a teaser. I'm just whetting your appetite for what's going to come in the weeks after. But those are our 4 points that we're gonna look at and unpack this morning.

8 · The pastor explains why Paul waits until chapter 5 to directly address circumcision: he's been laying a theological foundation so that his commands flow from gospel indicatives

So first, legalism severs. Now, surprisingly, this is actually the first time in the letter that Paul takes the subject of circumcision and points it at the Galatians. He's mentioned circumcision before, right? He mentioned it in regard to Timothy. He's mentioned it. He's brought it up, but it's been in other contexts. This is the first time all the way towards the end of the letter that he finally talks about circumcision specifically as it pertains to what is happening in Galatia. Why does he do that? Why does he wait so long? Well, he's been laying a theological foundation. All the Gospel theology prior, the indicative, is the springboard for every instruction and command he's making now, the imperative. So here Paul instructs them. Galatians, and by extension, providence, you go back to circumcision. You go back to the law. And Christ has no salvific advantage to you. Get cut in your flesh and you'll be cut off from Christ. And the reason is simple. All this talk that he's been giving us about keeping the Law and being justified by works of the Law, everything he talked about in Galatians 2:1-5, all those references to works of the Law all terminate in this act of circumcision. He knows if the Galatians accept circumcision, they are in essence saying we don't just want circumcision, we want the whole Law. That's what circumcision was. It was a mark of your entrance into the Law. You say, 'I want circumcision.' You're saying, 'I want all of it. I want everything written in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Exodus. I want all of the Pentateuch. I want every command. That's how I want to pursue finding favor with God, by keeping every single command of Scripture perfectly so that He'll find favor for me.' And Paul recognizes their final destinies. At stake.

9 · The pastor expounds on verses 2-3, explaining that adding any merit to justification obligates one to the entire Law, creating an insurmountable debt with no access to Christ's saving power or the Spirit's help

You see in your text there, 'Look.' Maybe your version says, 'Behold.' Verse 2. Paul's calling our attention. If you submit to the knife, you're cut off from Christ. The reason is because verse 3 shows us to put yourself under one part of the Law is to put yourself under all of it. You try to add one piece of the Law to justification, try to add one little bit of merit, Circumcision for the Galatians. All sorts of different things throughout church history. Maybe it's an indulgence a couple hundred years ago, right? What is it today? You add one of those things to the equation of your justification, and you're now obligated to keep all of it. You're a debtor to the whole law, he says. Now, when he says you're a debtor, he's saying you go back to circumcision, you've got to perfectly keep every command. But it's not just that you have to keep the commands, You're a debtor to them. They're going to hold themselves over you. You're going to be in debt to living up to absolutely everything they command of you. You have to keep it, and you can't keep it. You'll be in debt to it. It'll be like the greatest debt you've ever imagined. It's like a $2 billion credit card debt hanging over your head, and you make $20,000 a year. Never getting out of it. That's what happens. And Christ, he says— this is sobering— has no saving advantage for you. Nor does the power of His Spirit to help you in obedience.

10 · The pastor defines hard legalism as belief in works plus Jesus for justification, which Paul equates with pure works-righteousness—heresy that severs from Christ

So, we say, legalism severs. It's either the law or it's Christ. You don't get to mingle the two. You don't get to mix and match them. If you add any rule or any work or any merit to your justification, to the way that you want to seek to find favor with God, the way you want to find entrance into salvation, into Christ, into union with Christ, add any of those things to it, and you just committed yourself to making all your justification dependent on obedience to the Law. Christ matters nothing for you. So there's no more forgiveness at the cross. When you slip up, and you will slip up, don't look to Jesus. You've got to look to the Law. Grace is gone. You must work and work perfectly. Now, I would define this as hard legalism. I had a helpful conversation, email exchange this week. I want to help— last week we talked about two different kinds of legalism, and I want to be very careful to explain the differences between the two. So this, what Paul is describing here, I would call hard legalism. It's a belief in works of the law, either man-made or Mosaic, in order to secure justification. If you put it in an equation, it would be Jesus plus some merit of some sort equals justification. Hard legalism is just salvation by works. Now, in Galatia they're saying, no, no, no, no, no, we're saying Jesus. We're saying the cross. We're saying grace plus some works. Paul says, no. If you talk about salvation by grace plus works, you're talking about salvation by works. You don't get to add the other to the equation. It always involves this idea of hard legalism leaning on the flesh. You're looking to what you can do, what you can add, how God needs your little bit to help you get saved. And it's heresy. You add even one thing—circumcision, Sabbath keeping, whatever your merit might be— and you have to keep it all. And Paul says here, you keep it without Christ, without the power of the Spirit, without the grace of the Gospel. So in other words, one work added, one merit added, and there's no grace available. You're on your own. Galatians 3:10, 'For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. You want to go back to the law, then you will be under the curse because you will be unable to fulfill it. Turn to the law for justification in any sense, and you must keep the entire law to avoid that curse. And this is exactly why hard legalism is deadly. You trifle with hard legalism, and Paul is saying in this text, you won't go to heaven. That's a pretty sobering thought, right? That's what it means to be cut off from Christ. It's a deadly thing. It's either all grace or all works. You don't get to mix the two. And here's an illustration. It's always been this way. Think back. You familiar with your Old Testaments? Maybe you're not. I'll fill you in a little bit. The Old Testaments in the book of Judges, It's this time when the people of Israel don't have kings, and you see they're in the Promised Land and they're ruled, you know, Samson, everybody's heard of Samson, right? Big strong dude with long hair, meets Delilah the temptress, gets his hair cut, now all of a sudden he's weak. That's the era of judges. These judges are supposed to help to judge the people of Israel, supposed to help to lead the people of Israel, and keep them away and at arm's length from their neighbors because their neighbors worship false gods. And you see it again in 1 and 2 Kings, in 1 and 2 Chronicles, all over the Old Testament, these examples of Jesus— Jesus— of Israel in these interactions with her neighbors stepping towards syncretism. Now, syncretism just means you read those stories and what do you see again and again? Here is Israel going to the temple in the time when they had the temple. Or worshiping God in the time of the Judges before the temple. And at the same time, Israelites are going and building Asherah poles, these poles dedicated to false gods. They're going into altars dedicated to Baal, and they're worshiping and sacrificing to Baal. So what's going on there? Israel is trying to have their cake and eat it too. They're trying to do both. They're trying to mix and match. We're gonna worship God. We're gonna do What God has commanded us to do in the law mostly, we're going to pursue them, we're going to offer sacrifices to our God, the God that led us out of Egypt. But you know what? Sort of as a little insurance plan, a little backup in case for some reason our God doesn't work out, we're going to go and sacrifice and worship to these other gods on the side. It happens over and over and over again. It's syncretism. It's the mixing of religions. They're trying to cover all their bases, right? We'll worship our God, but just to be sure we're all good and squared away, we'll worship other gods too. Now, here's the question: How did God view this? When God looks at the Israelites doing that, does He say, 'Ah, some good, some bad. Some of that's from faith, some of it's from unbelief.' No, when they would do that, when those periods of time came up, God would view it and He would say, That is one act of disobedience. As you live that way, Israel, you're slipping into syncretism. And he would send the prophets to them, and the prophets would say, Israel, you're idolaters. You don't mix heresy with orthodoxy. You don't mix grace with works.

11 · The pastor illustrates the fatal consequence of mixing grace with works by analogy to mixing all soda flavors into a 'suicide'—the Galatians are committing spiritual suicide by attempting to blend law and grace for justification

Maybe they still do this, I don't know. When I was young, we'd go to a restaurant, and if you went to a restaurant and it was one of those, like, self-serve Pop machines. You got old enough, your parents would let you go and get a pop. And we would always go to the Pizza Ranch. I don't even know if anybody's even been to a Pizza Ranch. If you haven't been, it's great. They've got pizza and broasted chicken combined in one buffet. So it's perfect because you got the pizza for the young people and broasted chicken for the older people, although I loved the broasted chicken myself. And so you would go and you'd get everything you wanted. There's this wonderful cactus bread. But the treat was you'd go there and they'd give you a glass at Pizza Ranch and you'd get to go and get your own pop. And you go and now it's just options, right? You've got root beer and Sprite and Dr Pepper, and I'm probably mixing Coke and Pepsi products here, but you get the picture. There's all these options in front of you. And you can't just choose one, can you? No. As a kid, I would go up there and I'd get— I'd just work my way down the line. The only thing I wouldn't get was the water. You get a little bit of every flavor of pop. And you take it back to the table and mom and dad ask, 'What kind did you get?' 'I got a suicide!' Right? Do they still call it that? There you go. 'I got a suicide because I got all the flavors mixed together in one.' That's exactly what's happening here. You mix grace and you mix works for justification, and you've got a suicide. You've become severed from Christ.

12 · The pastor explains Paul's shocking statement in verse 12, where he wishes the circumcision party would go all the way and emasculate themselves, underscoring the utter foolishness of their position

This is why Paul makes the shocking statement he does in verse 12. 'I wish that those who unsettle you,' I wish these people who are promoting circumcision among you, 'would emasculate themselves.' These men are tearing the church apart. They're promoting a false gospel. So Paul says, 'You know what? They shouldn't stop cutting where they do. They should keep cutting.' The foolishness of their actions would be more in line with cutting everything. And yes, Paul means exactly what you think he might mean when he's saying that. That's how crazy their actions are. He's underscoring the nonsense of it. I love how Brian Chappell puts this: 'Our bargaining chips of good works have no currency with God.' God is stalwart in His determination to resist and thwart every effort to earn His favor. He gives it freely. He gives it graciously. He gives it in Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, and He gives it with no regard for our attempts to merit it.

13 · The pastor interprets the warning passage pastorally, explaining that Paul's warning about being severed from Christ is not meant to torment believers with introspection but to function as a means of grace that keeps them trusting in Christ alone

This is a warning about the fatal nature of hard legalism. You fall away, you participate in this, and you will be damned. You turn from grace to the law and you are lost. And it's a real warning. Here's the thing, it's not that a believer can really know Christ and grace and then fall from grace. Remember he says, 'If you get circumcised.' So they haven't been circumcised yet. There's a thing going on in the text where they haven't participated in the circumcision. They've been tempted to participate. So Paul is writing this as a warning to them. And that helps us in how we read these sorts of texts. Because if we're not careful on how we read these texts, they can torment us. Maybe some of you are already tormenting yourselves. Am I syncretistic? Am I cut off? You know, those are the kind of questions we go home and lay up at night wondering, right? I don't know. I was kind of hard on myself when I didn't mow the lawn on Monday. Am I syncretistic? Well, Paul is warning us. He's telling us legalism severs us from Christ and it's a deathly peril. This is a warning. But here's the thing, every true Christian heeds the warning every time. The warnings— Schreiner's really helpful here— the warnings themselves are a means of grace. He's not warning so that Christians will go home and just get super introspective and sit down with their wife. We need to take a 2-day retreat and we need to detail every area where we've been succumbing to works and where we— I don't want to be cut off from Christ. That's not what he's meaning to do. He's not meaning for you to just go into this vacuum of introspection and just dig and dig and dig for every corner of the possibility of works in your life. What he's saying is, I'm warning you, stand on grace. Turn to grace. Look to Jesus. Seek to be justified by faith alone and grace alone at all times. And the warning itself is a means of grace. The warning is the way that God keeps us within His love. The warning is God's means to keep us trusting, to keep the ransomed ones secure in covenant grace. The people who don't respond to the warning show that they were never part of the covenant to begin with. So the point isn't to get all crazy introspective about legalism and lay awake at night thinking, 'Have I been committing this hard legalism? Am I cut off from grace?' The purpose is to keep you relying on grace, to keep you satisfied in grace, to keep you pursuing grace.

14 · The pastor illustrates how warning passages function as means of grace by analogy to a track coach yelling 'Keep running!' to a runner who is already running

I'll give you an illustration. It's like a track coach. We've got some teens that are in track in here, maybe some adults who've even run it. We've probably all seen it, right? The Olympics are coming up. We're going to see track. Well, you go to track practice and you're going to see the coach sitting there with the stopwatch and he's going to be exhorting and encouraging the runners. I ran quarter miles. It's not a fun event. And you'd be running and sometimes you'd come out there and it's like, 'Okay, we're running 6 or 7 quarters today.' And you get to the second and third one and you're tired and you're dead and the coach would yell out, 'Keep running! Keep running! Good job!' Now, why is the coach yelling that? Is he yelling it so that in the middle of the 400 I stop? Was I not running? He said to keep running. Was it because I wasn't running? No, that's not why the coach says it. The coach says it to keep you running because you are running. That's why Paul says this here. It's a means of grace. It's a warning to believers. Don't turn to hard legalism. Don't turn to works of the law. Rest in grace. Rest in Christ. Pursue justification by faith alone, knowing that God provides that gift through the power of the Spirit. Trust in that. Don't turn back. Keep running. Don't stop in the middle of your race and wonder, 'Was I running?' It's not what the track coach means. It's not what Paul means. The warning passages aren't a call to introspection, but to keep faith in the way we've already been doing it. Keep your focus on Jesus, is what Paul is saying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep casting yourself on grace as the source of your hope for salvation.

15 · The pastor transitions from the first point (legalism severs) to the second (legalism spreads), maintaining the sermon's structure

So, legalism severs. Legalism also spreads. Second point.

16 · The pastor expounds Paul's metaphor of leaven (yeast) by likening legalism to cancer—a spiritual malignancy that spreads through the body of Christ

Legalism severs. Legalism also spreads. Second point. Legalism severs. Legalism also spreads. Paul likens legalism in this text to yeast. A modern illustration would be to say legalism is like cancer. It's the negative effects of a spiritual malignancy that spreads the fatality to other organs and other systems and other limbs. The same happens in the body of Christ. Legalism blends with grace, takes grace and blends it with works. Some of Christ, some of this merit, some of Jesus, some of what I bring on my own, and it spreads. Paul's point is that a drop of law-keeping into the well of justification poisons all the water of grace. That's hard legalism. A belief in works of the law for justification. That version is heresy and death.

17 · The pastor defines soft legalism as imposing personal convictions in areas of Christian freedom as binding standards for others, turning wise Spirit-led convictions into measures of maturity and sanctification

But there's also soft legalism, a more subtle version. Soft legalism, and you'll probably remember, hopefully recall this from some of the stuff we said last week, calls behavior sinful that the Bible doesn't label sinful. It says, 'That is off-limits. Absolutely so.' when the Bible doesn't say that's off-limits absolutely so. I went to a college where there was no dancing, right? Because the Bible says no dancing! They didn't read much about David, right? There was a hard stance being taken on something that the Bible gave room for wisdom and gave room for freedom. That's a soft legalism. It's a legalism that takes strong personal convictions. Let me be very clear here. Strong personal convictions can be a very good thing. In these areas where freedom is provided, God's calling you to act wisely. He's calling you to act in step with the Spirit, to act accountably, and to know yourself. I can't do that thing even though it might be allowed biblically because I know myself and I know if I do that, I'm going to take the next step into what the Bible doesn't allow. There is room. For wise, strong, Spirit-given personal convictions. That being said, soft legalism takes those personal convictions in an area where Scripture makes room for freedom, and it applies those personal convictions woodenly to others who don't share that conviction. Often these convictions become a source of strength for sanctification. This is how I measure sanctification. By how I'm keeping these convictions. I mean, I grew up in a place where not mowing your lawn on Sunday, but mowing your lawn every third day was essentially a mark of sanctification. If you mowed your lawn on Sunday, there were serious questions about your salvation. I'm not kidding. There really were. What kind of a Christian would mow their lawn on Sunday? But woe be to the one who waited until Thursday to mow your lawn. Your neighbor would probably mow it for you just to remind you, good Christians, make sure that lawn is mowed on Monday. We can twist these and make these very strange, strange things. So these things become a source of strength for sanctification. They become the bar for maturity. And we begin to measure how somebody is really serious about Christianity based on what they do in regard to our personal convictions. This is the equation of Jesus plus my extra-biblical convictions equals maturity for everyone. Soft legalism is a mindset that rigidly interprets Scripture and imposes those interpretations on others. When Scripture makes room for freedom, you make a rule. These unbiblical standards fill the church with critical judgments and puffed-up, proud people. Both kinds of legalists persecute their body, the hard legalist and the soft legalist. Now, hard legalism is fatal. It's heresy. It's the more deadly of the two. It strikes at justification itself. It leaves the legalist with a perverted gospel and a false sense of assurance. Soft legalism pollutes individual godly convictions into enslaving standards for everyone. It's the subtler of the two. It's not as obvious. It applies to sanctification and maturity and godliness, and it can sneak up on us.

18 · The pastor explains how soft legalism spreads like leaven, potentially growing from sanctification standards into justification requirements

Here's the great danger. Galatians 5:7: You were running well, 'Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from Him who calls you.' It's not from God. 'A little leaven,' Paul says, 'leavens the whole lump.' Legalism spreads from one person to another in the body, but also, potentially, from soft to hard. The soft legalist starts by assuming these rules that I've constructed have the power to change me. These rules are the means by which I'm gonna continue to grow in sanctification. Paul makes clear the law does not have the power to sanctify. What has the power to sanctify? The gospel empowers sanctification. The Word of God empowers sanctification. The Spirit empowers sanctification. You strive and you fight and you toil to become holy through those means, not through the means of rules. The law will kill you. It will enslave you. But the soft legalist starts thinking, 'There's power in these rules.' Power to change hearts. To change my affections. It's a subtle thing. But when we go beyond personal conviction and then extend those convictions to others or even to ourselves as measures or means of holiness, so you do these things and you're more holy, or you do these things to get holy, we're in trouble. Soft legalism is dangerous because it works like yeast. It grows and it infects. It can become the breeding ground for hard legalism. What starts as a conviction gets extended legalistically to others. We judge them for not complying. They become less mature. They become a lower standard of Christian. Soon— now remember, these are extra-biblical categories, right? So not the things we read in the latter part of Galatians 5 where Paul says, 'Don't do this.' He says in Galatians 5:19, 'The works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.' Those are the things that Paul is saying you better not do those. That's not what a soft legalist does. The soft legalist takes the areas where there's gray and where there's room for freedom and makes hard rules and says, Well, there's got to be some variant text out there that Paul missed where dancing fit into that list. That's what a soft legalist does. Now, that grows. So now they're less mature. Now they're less Christian. And suddenly we start to question, are they really a Christian? Can you really be a believer? My parents got a new pastor who grew up in the South, and he found it really interesting the way the area I grew up in drew a very hard line. Those who smoke cannot be Christians. Smoking, that's clearly something that you can't do if you're a Christian. Now, a guy that grew up in the tobacco South, that was a strange interpretation to him. But we begin to think that way. I don't think smoking is healthy, by the way. Suddenly, what began as personal conviction leaked over into a fleshly, man-centered approach to sanctification. And now, that leaking has continued into justification. It doesn't always do that. Personal convictions from the Spirit can be very, very good things. We all have them. I guarantee you, you have personal convictions by which you wisely order your life. If you're married, you and your wife have personal convictions that go beyond what Scripture says, but you're following the Spirit and following wisdom for yourselves and you order your life by them. We all do it. Every person in this room does it. But it can spread if we're not careful. And we can spread We take a date night every week and we always go to a restaurant and then go for a walk so that we can talk about spiritual things. Julie and Bob only take a date night once a month and they just go to a movie and then go home. How dare they? There's wisdom in that, right? There's wisdom in that. Now, you shouldn't always be going to movies on the date night. I mean, there's place to say, I want to go on a date night and converse with my wife and enjoy time with her and I want to pour in her, I want to grow her with the water of the Word, you know? But you see how we do that? It starts to spread. Those two aren't as mature as us. Look at what they do with their date nights. That couple's not as mature as us. Look at the way they've pursued dating. And then it becomes Are they really a Christian? And when that happens, the legalism has spread from soft to hard, and it's become an addendum to the gospel. It's become an addition. You've added it to Jesus, and you're in danger now of being lumped in with the Judaizers, with this circumcision party, with those Paul says shouldn't stop cutting where they cut. But should cut everything. I love what Spurgeon says, 'Beneath the robes of religion, many carry a heart of stone.'

19 · The pastor acknowledges the difficulty in distinguishing wise personal convictions from soft or hard legalism, since the same issues can function differently depending on how they're held

What makes it difficult is that it's so gray. Issues like smoking and dancing and dating practices and the responsible use of alcohol, schooling, keeping Sabbath, they fall into conviction for some, But for others, they might be soft legalism. And for others, they might be hard legalism. But personal experience and church history show us that there is an organic connection. Hold those personal convictions softly. Hold them graciously. As we'll see in the final point, hold them with a faith that works through love. And lovingly assumes the best about others. Legalism is something that enslaves us and kills joy. Here's why. One, it makes people feel guilty rather than loved. It produces self-loathing rather than humility. It stresses performance and perfection over relationship. And it points out failure rather than growth by the grace of Christ. If you feel guilty, condemned, inadequate, you may need to check your focus. Are you living by faith in Christ or are you seeking to meet the demands and expectations of others? Galatians 5:1, 'For freedom Christ has set us free.' Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

20 · The pastor transitions to the third point (faith waits) by explaining that Paul encourages believers that true Christians won't fall into hard legalism and will be rescued by the community from soft legalism

Now, Paul encourages us, we won't live this way, and is careful to point out that there is a true nature to Christianity. You won't live like the legalists. That's what the warning passages are. True Christians don't fall into hard legalism. And by grace, the community of God comes along them when they're tempted with soft legalism and helps them to see it. And helps them to confess and helps them to purge it and to graciously move away from it. But there's also a way that Christians live that's the opposite of those things. In verse 5, he says, 'In opposition to these, for through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves wait for the hope of righteousness.'

21 · The pastor explains that faith stands in opposition to the law and smothers legalism by being forward-looking and expectant

Legalism severs and legalism spreads, but faith Faith stands in opposition to the law. Faith is what ultimately smothers the toxicity of all forms of legalism. Paul claims that true Christian experience is characterized by faith, and it's faith with a solid expectation. So, it's faith that's forward-looking. It's faith that eagerly awaits God's final demonstration of righteousness when His truth will be vindicated and His people will receive the final verdict of not guilty. There's a lot in that phrase. Faith waits eagerly. It expects that God will have a final demonstration of righteousness for the one of faith when God's truth will be vindicated and when God's people, those who have faith, will find a final verdict of not guilty. So faith is inherently forward-looking. The sense of hope here is an expectant hope that on the last day at the final judgment, God will find us righteous.

22 · The pastor explains the distinction between present imputed righteousness and future declared and actualized righteousness

Faith is a disposition and it's a posture of trust. That when Christ returns, that when we stand before His throne, faith reassures us we will find forgiveness and we will find grace and we will find reconciliation. We will see the fullness of redemption. But especially, faith anticipates that on that last day, face-to-face with Jesus, we will find righteousness. Now, maybe you're wondering, 'Hold on a second. I thought you talked back in Galatians 3 about the fact that Abraham was counted righteous because of his faith. Aren't we already righteous? Didn't you say that because of faith and in Christ, we're clothed in the righteousness of Christ? That there was an imputation of our righteousness?' of Jesus' righteousness to us in imitation of our unrighteousness, our disobedience to Jesus? Didn't you say that by faith that's already happened? Yes, I did. I'm not speaking out of both sides of my mouth. But being counted righteous eagerly awaits the final verdict of righteousness before the throne. Now, here's what I mean. We are counted righteous in Christ. If you've believed in Christ, You are right now, by faith, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. When God looks at you, believer, He sees Jesus. All of Christ's benefits surround you. You are united with Christ by faith. God sees you as righteous. Now, on the last day, because of faith, that current imputed righteousness, so that alien righteousness as Luther calls it, God will publicly declare righteous. He will stand before all creation and say, 'This one is righteous.' And it won't just be imputed righteousness. On the last day, we will be made righteous. You see the difference? Right now, I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And I still know the agonies of Romans 7. This man who still sins and fails and fights against the flesh. I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and yet there's still sin within me that I fight tooth and nail to mortify. Faith recognizes that on the last day, that alien righteousness of Christ that has been imputed to me and covers me, God will declare publicly, and He will make me what He's already declared me to be. We will actually become righteous. In other words, sin will be gone. No more fighting against the flesh. No more longing for holiness. No more sensing failure and experiencing failure and having to turn back to grace. It will be all grace because you will be transformed into the image of Christ. At that time. And that's what faith waits for. The former ensures the latter. Your faith now, your being counted righteous in Christ now, ensures that on the final day, you as one who has faith will be made righteous. But faith in Christ's righteousness now eagerly awaits the day of sight. Of looking like Jesus physically in His holiness.

23 · The pastor establishes that the same Spirit who created faith in believers also sustains faith and strengthens eschatological hope, ensuring perseverance

Faith waits eagerly and longs for that verdict. It hopes for it. Here's the good news Paul tells us in this verse: the same Spirit who first created faith in us strengthens faith in this sense of eschatological hope, of hope for what will come in the end. It's the hope of perseverance. So how will you continue strong to the end? How does that happen? In the same way it began. The life-giving work of the Spirit. The same Spirit that birthed faith will sustain it. Faith generated and sustained by the presence of the Holy Spirit underscores and reemphasizes the crucial role that the Spirit plays in the Christian's life. Remember Paul saying, 'You who began by the Spirit, are you now going to be completed by the flesh?' He said that earlier in Galatians. You think you're just going to start by the Spirit and now you're going to turn to your own strength? No. Your hope, he says in Galatians 5:5, you know what your hope is? Your hope is that by faith you will be made righteous in the last day, and your hope is grounded in the fact that the Spirit will assist you every step of the way in securing you. The Spirit is the power that keeps branches tethered to the vine.

24 · The pastor uses Luther's theology to demonstrate how the Spirit sustains faith in moments of weakness and doubt through the Word of God

I love how Luther talks about this. He makes a connection between the struggle we have with hope and with faith now in our life and the way the Word of God, the thing inspired by the Spirit, helps us. As sinners, we say to ourselves, 'I feel the violent terrors of the law and the tyranny of sin, not only waging war against me, but completely conquering me.' I do not feel any comfort of righteousness. I don't sense that I'm counted righteous in Christ. Therefore, I feel that I'm not righteous but a sinner, and if I'm a sinner, then I am sentenced to eternal death. And Luther gives us the ammunition to battle against such a view using the Word inspired by the Spirit. Even though I feel— that's so important— even though I feel myself completely crushed and swallowed by sin and see God as hostile and a wrathful Judge, Yet, in fact, this, this feeling is not true. It's only my feeling that thinks so. The word of God, which I ought to follow in these anxieties rather than my own consciousness, teaches me differently. Namely, that God is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. And that he does not despise He despises a broken and contrite heart. See how the Spirit, through the means of grace that is the Word that the Spirit inspires, comforts the afflicted, helps us in that moment of weakness, in that dark day when faith seems so feeble. The Spirit comes along through the Word and blows, and that little flicker takes on more strength.

25 · The pastor contrasts faith empowered by the Spirit with self-reliant striving

Faith empowered by the Spirit waits for the final vindication. Not by proving a believer righteous now, but by clinging to all God has done for them in Christ. Faith doesn't anticipate righteousness by striving to attain righteousness. Faith doesn't say, 'I'm going to be righteous one day, so I'm going to make sure I'm righteous one day by being righteous now.' That's what's going to make sure God makes me righteous one day. If I'm righteous now, That's going to earn me credit to make sure God makes me fully righteous later. Faith doesn't find hope— hope— in doing or obeying or by relying on my own strength. Faith relies on the Spirit to look away from ourselves and see Christ and all His benefits. Human willpower does not look outward. It looks inward. But the Spirit transforms us by creating faith and sustaining faith and empowering our ongoing trust in that God still does and will continue to render us not guilty and righteous before Jesus.

26 · The pastor summarizes the third point (faith waits) and transitions to the fourth point (faith works), flagging that this final point anticipates the next sermon in the series

So faith waits eagerly, longing for that last day. It turns to the Spirit, turns to the thing the Spirit has inspired. It turns to the people that the Spirit is active among and says, 'Help. Sustain. Breathe onto the flickering flame of my faith and give it renewed strength.' Finally, in anticipation for our next message, faith works.

27 · The pastor anticipates the objection that emphasizing grace promotes licentiousness by establishing that serious pursuit of holiness is not legalism when grounded in gospel indicatives

That's not contradictory. Faith waits and faith works. Finishes verse 5, You're hoping for this righteousness. And verse 6, 'For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.' Hear this: Serious pursuit of holiness is not legalism. Seriously desiring to be holy, seriously desiring to be like Jesus, That is not legalism. It's not soft legalism. It's not hard legalism. When we are grounded in the indicative truths of the Gospel, when we understand all that Christ has done for us in His perfect life, in His perfect obedience, in His perfect death, and His being raised from the grave, when we understand those indicative truths that are ours through the work of the Spirit to grant us faith, to unite us to Christ, we pursue the imperative calls to holiness from the right heart. We pursue obedience from the right disposition, the heart of faith. For 4 chapters, Paul has established the gospel of grace. We cannot forget what he has established for 4 chapters as we turn to the remainder of the book. Faith is the only means of being counted righteous before God. The only means. Favor is found through faith. Not works. But in a similar argument in Romans, Paul anticipates the charges. You emphasize grace too much. You emphasize grace so much that it's going to promote licentiousness. Romans 6:1, Paul says, 'What then shall we say? Are we to continue to sin that grace may abound?' You hear the argument there? 'By no means.' By no means. It's this statement in the Greek that just leaps off the page. By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? How can we who've died to sin, died with Christ in a death like His, and have the hope of being raised with Him in a resurrection like His, how can we still live in sin? How can the one who has been united to Christ by faith still go on living and doing the things that are opposed to Christ?

28 · The pastor establishes that justifying faith is never alone but always works through love

In Christ, works amount for nothing. All merit and forms of pride die at the cross through faith. But authentic faith doesn't just wait. It also works through love. Put another way, we're justified by faith alone, but justifying faith is never alone. Sola fide, that Reformational concept, by faith alone. Our justification is through nothing but faith. But true justifying faith has always the same authentic expression: love. Real faith is very much at work through the ministry of love. For Paul, this is the very nature of Christian living: faith working through love. Paul's assault on works of the law should never lead us or leave us with the impression that faith is passive. Quite the opposite. Faith makes genuine work, grounded in love for God and others, possible. Faith makes godly work possible. Not justifying work. Faith fundamentally recognizes faith is what justifies. But in recognizing the justification that happens through faith, it now begins to work in pursuit of becoming what has already been declared.

29 · The pastor expounds on the subtle danger of making even right doctrine a ground for boasting

Faith is also very intentional in the way that it works. Paul very carefully contrasts the fruit of faith with the fruit of flesh in that verse. Love with pride. Verse 6 informs us, 'In Christ, works of any kind, circumcision or uncircumcision—' What a strange thing to say, Paul. You've been telling them to stay uncircumcised. You just said, 'Look! Behold! Stay uncircumcised! Stay as you are!' And now he says, 'In Christ, works of any kind, circumcision or uncircumcision, counts for nothing.' He's showing us how fickle our hearts are. The Judaizers boasted in their circumcised flesh. And Paul sees and says the Gentiles might easily be tempted one day to boast in their uncircumcised flesh. Flesh. It's like the young adult reacting against the perceived self-righteousness of the previous generation. They were so legalistic about these things. And now I experience freedom. And in that fight against their self-righteousness, the young person becomes self-righteous in the fact that I'm not self-righteous. That's what Paul's talking about here. It's a type of thinking that makes belief— belief in justification by faith— a grounds for boasting. Did you catch that? It's the kind of idea that says, I'm going to take justification by faith and make that my reason for boasting before God. You know how I'm saved? Because I believe in justification by faith. I'm saved because I believe in this doctrine. This doctrine is what saves me. Jesus saves you. Jesus is what saves you. Faith is what clings to Jesus. It starts to think, 'I'm saved. I'm justified. I'm justified because I believe in the right doctrine, and that is a justifying, saving thing.' You're not justified in that way. You're justified by believing in Christ for salvation. Faith says, 'I cling to Christ in the fact that He is all the provision I need and can ever have for salvation.' It doesn't make justification by faith a work in and of itself. We're tricky people. We can make a work out of anything. Circumcision was meant to be a sign of grace to Abraham and his people. They made it a work. And we can just as easily turn a doctrine like justification by faith, being gospel-centered, being Reformed, being evangelical, into similar grounds of boasting.

30 · The pastor concludes by establishing that faith works actively through love—the antidote to flesh, pride, and self-righteousness

Faith works in a very particular way: through love. Faith is active. It runs, it fights, it toils, always resting in the grace of Christ as its ultimate hope. It works through the antidote of the flesh. It works. You're the antidote to the flesh and pride and self-righteousness through love. And love expresses faith by fighting any part of us that qualifies grace. That's the preview for the next sermon in Galatians.

31 · The pastor concludes the sermon with a prayer invoking the hymn 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,' asking that the Word would stir up faith in believers and for the first time in unbelievers, and that the Spirit would sustain, strengthen, and activate faith to work through love

I'm going to pray for us in a moment. I'm going to ask Skip and the worship team to come up. Can we sing, 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing'? Seems like a nice way to end here. Lord, we sing loudly the hymn we're about to sing when it comes to that verse, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. And then we sing loudly because your grace like a fetter binds our wandering hearts. Hearts to you. God, you do that by faith and the power of your Spirit. And so, Lord, I pray now that your word would be effective, that it would stir up faith in your people. Lord, if there are people here who don't know Jesus, it would stir up faith for the first time. Would you save some this morning, Spirit, that they might see Jesus? And Lord, for those of For us who know and have tasted and have savored, have had our affections stirred and our eyes raised to the glories of Calvary and him who is seated at the right hand of God, through the work of your word and the power of your spirit, the fellowship of your saints right now as we sing together, would you sustain and strengthen and deepen and make active works of love our faith. In your name, Jesus. Amen.