Galatians Review - 2 -Audio

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started with an introduction to Galatians.

And Lord willing, next week, we're going to start with an introduction to Philippians, which is our next book.

But we'd like to end with a review, just like you would do teaching anything.

We want to make sure that we got it, that we picked up what the Lord was laying down here in inspiring Paul to write to the Galatian people.

And we do that because we want the word in us, in our heart.

Psalm 119, 9-12 says, how can a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed according to your word.

With my whole heart I have sought you.

Oh, let me not wander from your commandments.

Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.

This is what we need to be doing.

Hiding the word in our heart that we might not sin against the Lord.

Blessed are you, O Lord.

Teach me your statutes.

It's extremely important.

valuable, extremely important, that we as a church are very serious, not just about coming and fellowshipping, which we should be serious about, not just about serving and doing those things, which we should be serious about, and worshiping in song, which we should be serious about, but in hiding the word in our hearts.

There's no benefit to coming here and leaving with maybe even full emotions, but an empty heart and empty head.

We need to get the scripture in our heart, which is why we do this.

This is why we teach the Bible.

We try to teach all of it and we review it when we're done with a book like this.

So let's continue with our review.

We're in chapter three, that's how far we got.

And I was going through kind of major passages in there.

And we're just going to walk through.

So we're in chapter 326 through 29.

Bible's in front of you.

Bible will be up here.

Phones, however you want to do it.

Just get the Bible in you.

And if you want to take notes, Kaylee's out there taking notes.

She specifically asked me, are we in Philippians yet or still in Galatians?

She's such a little good note taker.

Soon she'll learn how to spell.

And it's going to be really, no.

She went to high school in Vancouver, okay?

So, no.

No.

Glenn Cook was one of her teachers.

That's all I need to say, right?

So she knows how to spell.

Okay.

So it says, for you all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

This is part of the main point of Galatians, right?

You're not sons because of circumcision.

You're not sons because you did the feasts and the new moons and the this and the that.

You're

You're not sons because you follow the sacrificial system and you followed all the rules and you wore the right things.

You're sons through faith in Christ Jesus.

We see the same thing.

For those of you that were with us as we went through the book of Romans, Paul walks through this by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

It is the faith that Abraham had that made him a son.

It is that faith that makes us sons and daughters.

Here it says sons.

The sense here is that sons were the ones who inherited.

So both men and women are sons in this sense, right?

Inheritors.

Inheritors of the kingdom.

That's who we are, of his kingdom.

Through faith, not through anything else.

This is the point he's been making clear this whole time.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Something to think about the next time that you are struggling with a decision.

The next time that you are considering compromising.

Think about the fact that when you were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ.

You are walking around.

Christian actually means little Christ.

That's where it started kind of to make fun of the Christians.

They ended up being like, I like that.

And so they took it on and I like it too.

The idea is we've put on Christ.

That when people look at us, we want them to see not only us, but Christ in us.

That we have put on Christ.

And then the point he makes here is there is neither Jew nor Greek.

There is neither slave nor free.

There is neither male nor female.

What's the point he's making here?

When we're in Christ, there is no divisions.

We are one in Christ.

Circumcision may have made you a good Jewish person at the time, but that means nothing once we've been baptized into Christ and put on Christ.

Doesn't matter if you're a slave.

Doesn't matter if you're free, male or female.

All these people would have had different status.

In the first century, this has been being written, okay?

A Jew or a Greek.

Well, the Jews didn't like the Greek meaning Gentile, meaning non-Jew.

The Jews didn't like the Greeks, right?

And slave nor free, pretty obvious distinction between those two people.

And male nor female, there was a very obvious distinction between those two.

In fact, the thing that has really brought equality has been Christians over the years.

continuously advocating for the value that men and women are equally valuable.

Now, some people have taken that and done some crazy things with it all the way to the point now where people don't know what men and women are, but that's a different issue altogether.

This is not talking about, just so that we're clear, and I know some people get kind of worked up, this verse is not about women being in spiritual authority over men and everyone can do all the same things and that God has, that this means there's no way that God set up the church

Where men do certain things, women do certain things, and so on.

This has nothing to do with that.

This is about unity in Christ.

Unity in Christ.

It doesn't matter who you are.

It doesn't matter where you came from.

When you put on Christ, you became an heir.

For you are all one in Christ.

One.

Unified.

This word is actually used a lot these days.

in what we've called progressive Christianity, kind of an Eastern idea, sort of this oneness, that we're all just one.

We're all just a drop of water into the ocean.

Well, when a drop of water hits the ocean, it just becomes the ocean.

That's not the kind of one we are.

We are all individuals that are unified as one body in Christ.

Make sure that you always have that clear.

People will talk and use terms like oneness with you, and you'll be like, yeah, that sounds scriptural.

The way they're using that word is not scriptural.

You need to get yourself prepared to be able to answer those kinds of things.

When we say one, people will say things like, we came from God and we're going back to God.

Like we were part of him.

Like you were his knee and you came out and you're going to come back into him.

That's not God.

We're separate from God.

But at the same time, we're one with him.

One in unification, in relationship with him.

Our relationship, you can call it symbiotic.

We receive from him everything for life, for faith, our strength.

All of that comes from Christ as Christ followers.

But we are not the same thing.

One is about unity, not, why did I put an O there?

Not sameness.

It's wonderful.

I'm worse than Kaylee here.

She's actually just fine.

Unity, not sameness.

Please get this in your head.

The more and more and more you are going to hear people who say they're Christians who talk about oneness.

They'll talk about the atonement, at-one-ment.

They'll use that word, which in some sense is true, that we were able to be unified with Christ because of the atonement, the atonement being the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, his death and resurrection, right?

The atonement for our sins.

It is an at-one-ment in the sense that we could be reconciled with him.

It is not an at-one-ment meaning we're the same as him.

There is a huge movement trying to essentially make you God.

And it has lots of Christian language in it.

Please be prepared for that so that when people say things like that, you can explain to them what it means.

And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.

What's Abraham's seed?

Who's Abraham's seed?

Those who are children of faith.

Not those who are DNA direct descendants of Abraham.

That is not the thing that makes a difference.

God has his own plan for the people of Israel.

We know that.

But when it comes to being a Christ follower in Christ, Abraham's seed is the seed of faith.

And then therefore, that's why we get the same promise that he got.

The promise that Abraham had is to all of those who are the seed of faith.

All right, now we're going to chapter four.

And I'm going to read verse 4 through 7.

It says, Again, this whole section right here is, again, kind of just making another argument.

for the one he's been making the whole time.

You don't have to get circumcised.

You don't have to follow all the law, all these rules and regulations that were about setting the Jewish people apart from the evil nations around them.

That's all done because when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, Jesus, born of a woman, born under the law, born in human flesh, fully man.

God experienced all the things that you experience.

And because he was that, he was able to redeem, to buy us back out of sin, those of us who were under the law.

We were bought back from that, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Had nothing to do with all the rules.

We've talked about how Christians can be very legalistic.

We can become just like these folks, just like the Judaizers were, have all kinds of rules.

And now I see it on two sides.

We just talked about like progressive Christianity.

You actually have two sides of Christians now.

There's the Christians who are really legalistic who would say, how dare you not wear a suit while you preach or how dare you, you know, whatever, watch that movie.

How dare you, you know, some Christians say, if anyone ever drinks an alcoholic beverage ever, they're just this pure evil.

I grew up believing that.

Like the devil was in those bottles, and that's what people were, you know.

Whatever it happens to be, there's all kinds of rules that they make, right?

There's that side.

And then there's the other side that says, oh, Christians, the one rule is complete tolerance.

So that you have to accept everything, accept the Bible, have to accept everything else, and that's what Christ would have wanted.

Right?

I saw one recently that said, Christians read the Bible to determine what love is.

I use love to determine what the Bible says.

Yeah, that's what they said.

And I was just thinking to myself, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life.

How did you get the idea of what love was?

So your idea of love gets put on the Bible.

Absolutely right about the first part.

I read the Bible to know what love is.

I don't say I know what love is and then put that on the Bible.

I can tell you right now, anyone who knows me, anyone who knows anyone knows that their idea of love is not perfect.

Rarely does our idea of love line up correctly with scripture, right?

Oftentimes our idea of love is more like enabling

right?

Something more like that.

There's a lot of problems with our idea of love, that kind of, but think about how good, how alluring it sounds.

Satan is very, very good at this.

Very, very good.

Because you hear something like that, you know, oh, these Bible thumpers, they read the Bible to define love.

I define love and then read the Bible, right?

And it's like, oh, that sounds so good.

You're so smart, man.

You're so deep.

No, you're just a sinner who wants to make the Bible say whatever it wants to say.

You're just a rebel is what you are.

The Bible teaches us.

We don't teach the Bible.

We don't make the Bible say what we want it to say, right?

All right, let's move on.

And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, okay?

You have the Holy Spirit crying out, Abba, Father.

More and more these days.

More and more here at the end of the age, am I crying out in my spirit, Abba, Father?

Is the Holy Spirit in me crying out, Abba, Father?

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Maranatha, right?

We're like, man, we need help.

People have no idea how rotten the foundation is right now.

They've got no clue because they're still driving around in pretty nice cars.

I mean, in the West.

Obviously, that's not true everywhere.

But in the West, people are relatively wealthy.

I would say fabulously wealthy compared to most people that ever lived on this planet.

So they're feeling pretty good, not recognizing that underneath the entire thing is crumbling.

And those who have the eyes to see, who can see spiritually what's happening, we can see the rot in the foundations.

That's all about to come down.

And we're crying out, Abba, Father.

Save them.

Get me out of here.

I'm ready to go, right?

Be with Jesus.

Everything's perfect.

No sin.

Perfect body, which isn't that much of a change for me, but the rest of that stuff.

All right.

All right.

Easy.

Therefore, you are not.

That's a lot of laughing, okay?

Goodness.

I feel really bad about myself after this.

No, it's fine.

I know what I look like, I try to avoid.

Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son.

And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Once again, he's telling these folks who they are.

And this is gonna be really important when we get to chapter six where he kind of lays out how to act.

This determines how to act.

How do you act?

Like an heir of God.

Not like a slave to sin.

That's not how you act because you are no longer this.

You are now this.

What does it look like then?

And we see this constantly in the scripture, the New Testament, where we're told who we are.

We're told who we are.

We're told who we are.

And then we're told what it looks like to live like that.

Right?

And we're going to see in a minute here what it looks like to live like that.

So we're going to move on in chapter four, verse 16.

And this is the problem.

I wrote down my notes here.

The problem with confrontation.

The problem with confrontation.

He says, have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth.

Now, let me just tell you something.

I have had to tell myself the truth.

and become my own enemy about it sometimes.

You know, the flesh and the spirit war with each other.

But I've had to tell the truth to people in absolute, honest, from my heart, caring love.

And sometimes their response is that I become their enemy.

Their response to me is I'm their enemy.

Now you've seen this if you have children.

If you have children, roundabout, I don't know if Dylan's running around this morning, but he's two years old.

Soon, if not already, when his parents tell him the truth, like, no, you can't stay up.

No, you can't have another cookie.

No, you can't run out in the middle of the street.

Very quickly, you see with kids, that face, they become your enemy.

And you say to your child, have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?

That's not what you say.

You, you just, you know, well, we'll talk about how to take care of them later.

Um, but you teach them, right?

You teach them, but you see it in children.

You see the same thing, no matter how old somebody is.

If the scripture has something to say that pushes against what they want to do, how they want to live, that being in control for themselves, you become their enemy.

You go, and it doesn't matter how kind you've been, how long you've been kind.

how much you've loved them, how much you've shown them, how much you've cared for them, when you push up against the things that they don't want pushed up against, all of a sudden they're your enemy.

All the rest of that goes.

It's a really horrible feeling.

You must imagine what Jesus felt like, who had it way worse than any of us will.

Imagine how much love he showed to Jesus.

Three years in the presence of love himself.

Caring, loving, nurturing.

And Judas literally sent him to the cross.

And so did I. Right?

Because my sin had to be paid for too.

So I understand it.

But you need to understand two things.

One, as a Christ follower, you will be called to confrontation.

You might want to write this down.

As a Christ follower, I will be called to confrontation.

There is no way to walk around in this world and never have to encourage, exhort, and rebuke.

You're going to have to do it.

When you do it, oftentimes, not all the time, some people respond very well, but oftentimes...

enemies that's what happens and here's Paul's telling them and he's I mean you you those of you who are here with us you went through Galatians he doesn't really pull any punches he tells them very straight up you know oh foolish Galatians who has bewitched you why have you turned so quickly from the truth to this nonsense so he's you know he's been uh loving but firm let's just say

And then he has to say this because he knows what's coming up in their hearts.

How dare you question me?

Who are you to tell me?

You say you're the chief of sinners, which he does say about himself.

Who are you to tell me that I'm doing something wrong?

By the way, just so you know, if I ever have to correct you, I'm nobody to tell you.

Nobody.

But the Lord God is somebody.

And he's told us what's true.

So if I tell you what's in here, it's about what's in here.

You can get mad at me all you want.

But the one you're fighting with isn't me.

Jesus makes it very clear.

Look, if they hated me, they're going to hate you.

But I don't want to be hated.

Nobody does.

But that's what you signed up for.

So understand what it means to be a Christian.

You now stand against the world.

You also were a hater at one point.

And he saved you.

they zealously court you, but for no good.

Yes, they want to exclude you that you may be zealous for them.

In this case, he's talking about the Judaizers, of course, who have come and told them they have to follow all the rules and get circumcised and whatever.

And he said, they want to pull you into their doctrine, their teaching, right?

Which is not the gospel.

And now instead of being a disciple of Christ, you're zealous for them and their teaching.

How many times have we seen this?

A charismatic teacher, some pastor, usually, you know, good looking.

They talk really well and fancy and whatever.

And all of a sudden we start watching and their doctrine starts going.

And the people are so tied into that pastor that they defend this guy no matter how far off he goes.

Because they got into him.

They became zealous for that pastor and not for the word of God.

I honestly believe that if I started to veer, I mean a smidgen, you guys would be like, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh.

That's not what the word of God says.

I believe I would have multiple, if not many people who would come and correct me because we really have tried to set up a church where we do not look at pastors, elders, leaders as the person to follow, but rather Jesus is the person to follow.

And so long as we're in line with him, yes, you can follow.

That's fine.

You can allow us to serve you and so on.

But once we get off line with him, you better stay on him.

Not on us.

And that's your responsibility.

That's why Paul really liked what the Bereans did.

They tested what he said by the word of God.

Okay, he's saying this.

Let's see if that's true.

And that's what you ought to do.

That's your job.

Don't ever be led astray.

Don't ever make excuses.

You can have grace for people and be like, well, he's obviously gotten off base on that.

and I'll pray for him.

But you don't go, I'm with him, whatever he says.

I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Peter, I'm of Christ.

You know, this first Corinthians stuff.

No.

They want to pull you off.

And there are many in the world today, right now, that are in pulpits, teaching to build themselves up.

They are not about the people.

They've lost, it's either by negligence, they've just lost their first love for Christ and have just gotten sideways, or they're just evil.

I don't know.

All I know is they will stand before God for what they preach.

Your job, your job as a Christ follower is along with your brothers and sisters in Christ to make sure that what you're receiving is that which comes from the word of God.

And the Holy Spirit should testify that in your heart because he's the one who does the teaching.

On we go.

431, so then brethren, oh wait, did we not finish this one?

No, we didn't.

So then brethren, we are not children of the bond of the free, right?

What is this?

Flesh and spirit, right?

We are the spiritual children of God.

Abraham, faith, he has Isaac, that's the line.

Hagar, he has Ishmael.

That was a child of the flesh.

Sarah says to him, hey, I'm getting old.

I'm not having a kid.

We were promised a kid.

Take my maidservant.

Do that thing that makes kids, which I'm sure she was just so excited about the next morning.

And I'm like, what'd you do?

I don't know.

What you told me to do.

I don't know.

This is why multiple marriages and all this kind of stuff is such nonsense, right?

It always caused problems.

Anyway, that was the flesh.

That was all figuring out my way to do it.

And that was Ishmael.

Lots of problems.

But we are of the spiritual line, the line of faith, the line that went through Isaac, right?

And this is the point he's making.

It's not about this.

And so cutting this up, right?

Or doing certain kinds of fasts or doing certain kinds of feasts or doing certain kinds of, you know, where your phylacteries are large and you're wearing all these different clothes.

That is not it, right?

That's the flesh stuff.

The spirit is faith in Christ.

Christ crucified.

Christ risen.

My faith is there.

The rest of it, I'm free in, in regards to.

You wanna get circumcised?

Get circumcised.

You wanna do the feast?

Sometimes we've had a Seder meal and so on.

You wanna do that?

Great, do it.

You don't wanna do it?

Don't do it.

Just do what you do unto the Lord.

So long as it's consistent with the scripture.

Okay, then we get into chapter five.

We're getting there.

It's 945.

We may get through the review here.

Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

Again, same thing here, right?

The yoke of bondage is the law these Jews are trying to bring back.

The yoke of bondage in our context can be that.

It can be, hey, we came and we're free in Christ, then we start making lots of rules.

Now, Roger's gonna get mad at me, but I'll deal with him later.

So the Wesleyans, they have this book.

It's called The Discipline, The Wesleyan Discipline.

It's about the size of this, just so that you know, give or take.

It's got lots of rules in it.

Not all of them are a problem.

You have to have certain sort of rules and structure for the way you set up, how the church works, and what happens if someone, what happens if a pastor does get off?

How do we remove that pastor?

So you have to have some of that stuff.

But they've got some other stuff too.

Like you can't do this and you can't do that and you can't do this and you can't do that.

Many of which are really just things that came up mostly late 19th, early 20th century issues around things like alcohol and tobacco and things like this that became a problem.

And they were a real problem.

Just so you know, there was a time when lots of men were just drunk all day.

It wasn't like, like it was a problem.

There's a reason prohibition happened.

It didn't just come out of nowhere.

We had a huge, massive alcoholism problem in this country.

I mean, like nothing you've ever seen.

So there was a reason for it.

It just was the wrong way to solve it.

I mean, Al Capone liked it because he made lots of money, but it was the wrong way as a country to solve that issue.

It's always the wrong way to solve an issue when you go after the thing instead of the heart, right?

And so now, again, love my Wesleyan brothers and sisters.

And I think they're doing some stuff to work on taking that thing from this size to maybe like that size, which I would appreciate.

It's a lot of reading, right?

But the point is every denomination does that, by the way.

I'm just picking on that because Roger's here and he's, you know, make him feel bad.

But every denomination has stuff like that and they have more than just the regular rules.

Do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

Be free.

Now, there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, you should be wise.

Do I think that people should drink alcohol?

Generally speaking, there's not a lot of good reasons to do so.

If you're the kind of person and you know in your heart unto the Lord you can have a drink or a couple of drinks and not be inebriated, not get to the place where that's a problem for you and you're not tempted to do that, who cares?

Certainly that's what Jesus did.

I know it was just grape juice, right?

Because Welch's was around back then.

It was wine.

He was able to do that.

Most people in the world are.

Alcohol is a very normal part of the world.

However, lots of people, lots of you, in your past have had real problems with it.

If that's you, you shouldn't.

Pretty easy, right?

I'm not gonna make a rule about it though.

I'm not gonna put out a sheet of paper that says, every single Christian cannot drink.

That's a yoke of bondage.

And so what I'm gonna say is, here's what it looks like to live a Christ-like life as to, you fill in the blank, alcohol, your finances, your sex life, your whatever.

The scripture speaks to all of those things and tells us how to live.

We don't need to make other rules beyond what's in here.

Because that's creating a yoke of bondage again.

You had the Torah and then they had the Talmud.

What was the Talmud?

It was the 100,000 rules about the rules in the Torah, right?

And they kind of probably make 100,000 more about those.

You can get that way.

You know how many laws there are in this country?

Used to be when you became a lawyer, you basically could learn all the laws, right?

That's kind of how you studied the laws.

You studied the cases that were there.

And there were like seven.

Not really.

There was more than that, right?

But a few years and you could know all of it.

I could not know all the laws probably in the city of Vancouver.

Let alone just know by heart all the laws of the federal government.

It's crazy.

We make laws on top of laws on top of laws on top of laws on top of laws.

And very few of us as a result feel free to

Nothing's free around here.

You gotta fill that 1040 out so you know it's not free.

But very few of us feel free with all the laws that exist, and we don't do that in Christ.

Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.

And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.

What is he saying here?

If you go and follow legalistic rules, thinking that that is profiting you in your relationship with Christ, because you're following legalistic rules, Christ profits you nothing.

And if you, as some people have done, these are not the first Christians, nor will they be the last.

This still happens with some people.

Go back and

to Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and go, I'm going to follow all those rules.

Fine.

Now you're back outside.

What you're saying is the sacrifice of Christ wasn't enough.

I got to go back and follow all those rules.

And so he says, fine, then you're a debtor to the whole law.

You've put yourself back into a situation, if you believe that, to be a debtor to the whole law.

Of course, that's not the reality.

The reality is we are not, but you're living like this.

You're living like you're a debtor to the whole law.

Silly.

You have become estranged from Christ.

That should be sobering.

That when you become legalistic, that when you start making it about something other than faith in Jesus Christ, you become estranged from him.

And we, you know, this word, estranged, like we usually think about this like in a family, like, oh, their son and them are estranged or a husband and wife are estranged.

It means there's no relationship right now.

Doesn't mean they're no longer husband and wife because you'd say divorced, not estranged if they were divorced, right?

Doesn't mean that, you know, you can never not be somebody's son once you've been their son or their daughter, but you can be estranged, which means while we are still, while we still have those relationships,

We are related to each other in that way.

There is no relationship.

And you can get to this place, even as a Christ follower, where you're saved and you have no relationship.

You're not walking in any kind of relationship with the Lord.

Instead, you've come to whatever else you're doing, right?

Following some legalistic rules, being all about that kind of thing.

And there's all kinds of other ways, like living in sin, that can estrange you from Christ.

You who attempt to be justified by law.

This word, it's a legal word.

It is what happened to us when we were given Christ's righteousness because of the sacrifice, the atoning sacrifice, the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ.

When that happened, we were justified.

Gavel hits the...

days, I don't know what they call that thing.

The judges, a little spot, the guy with a little hammer, you know him, he hits the, it's a thing.

You're free.

You're free to go.

You're justified, justified, not because you paid for it, but because he paid for it.

You're justified, not by law, but by Christ.

So those of you who think that it's about following rules and you do a lot of this, like, well, they're not real Christians.

Look at the way they dress.

Look at this thing or that thing or whatever, which you could not find in the scripture that it's necessarily wrong to do at all, but your tradition has said, whatever.

I see this all the time with like the worship wars.

Oh, look at these.

Some people think that because we have like lights right here.

They're lights, right?

It used to have cathedrals with humongous, you know, stained glass windows and whatever.

I mean, we're talking ostentatious, right?

And why do they do that?

Because they wanted your mindset.

The whole point of this screen is to draw you into worship.

Christians are the ones who primarily have designed both architecture, even lighting, whatever, to draw you into worship.

But some people go, oh, it's a disco.

They're not real Christians.

That's not real worship.

To which I say, grow up.

Grow up.

I'm here worshiping the Lord.

You are here worshiping the Lord.

Who cares whether the room, you know, you should be in a room that's painted white that has, you know, only regular lights hanging from the ceiling and it should smell like old people.

That's what some people think, right?

Just Bengay, just that should be the smell.

Bengay and Amazing Grace, that's work for my grandpa.

Yeah.

Work for Abraham, it works for me, right?

But my point is that there are people who do that, right?

There are people who do that, and when we do that, we've fallen from grace because we're no longer looking to grace to be justified, right?

We're looking to law.

For we, through the Spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love.

The rules that we invent do not avail anything.

What avails something?

Faith in Christ, trust in Christ, believing in Christ, and love.

That's what works.

That's what works.

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty, freedom.

Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh.

Hey, I'm free.

That means I can do anything I want.

No, you're free to serve and submit to Jesus Christ as Lord.

That's what you're free to do.

Yes, you can do anything you want.

Doesn't mean it's good.

Don't use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another.

Next time that somebody has upset you, offended you, and I'm talking about your Christian brothers and sisters.

If they're not a Christian, just punch them.

No, I'm just kidding.

Your Christian brothers and sisters.

Next time someone offends you,

Next time someone makes you upset, ask yourself, am I serving one another through love?

What does that look like right now?

Because it may look like I'm going to humble myself.

That person's having a bad day.

I'm going to let that go.

I'm going to forbear that.

There's an awful lot of forbearance that happens in the body of Christ.

That's service.

We serve each other

Through love.

Through love, serve one another.

For all the laws fulfilled in one word, even in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and what flows directly from it.

Second is like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Why?

Why does it flow from it?

Well, because he's the one who created your neighbor in his image and likeness.

If you love him, you're going to love those he loves, those who he created.

So that's what life looks like.

But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another.

I've certainly seen that.

I've seen what it looks like.

It's pretty ugly.

I don't see the light here, which, praise the Lord, I don't ever wanna see it.

I want us to primarily, our primary motivation should be how can I serve you in love?

How can I put myself aside

and serve you.

Once again, I'm out of time.

We got really close.

We may just start Philippians next week.

I may come back and finish this, because I actually still have a couple pages.

We'll see what happens.

You just have to see what happens when you show up.

All right, let's pray, and then we're going to take communion together.