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We're going to have a time of prayer this morning, and I want us to focus that on the

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situation in Colorado that caught our attention so tragically this last week.

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Of course, the whole nation has been touched by it, but there are a number of families

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who have been directly impacted and affected by the loss of children or their children

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who were attending this school at the time.

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It is rather amazing, isn't it, that intelligent, educated, smart people in our country have

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such a hard time figuring out why this kind of thing happens in our schools?

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Our nation has turned from God, and this is part of the consequence of that.

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I'd like for us to bow right now, and would you pray just silently right where you're

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seated for some aspect of this that God would lay on your heart at this very moment, for

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the families, the churches that are meeting this morning, that are touched by the tragedy,

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our nation?

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This moment of silent prayer, we bring our requests and petitions to you, praying we

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trust in the Spirit as you would have us to pray for those scores and hundreds of people

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who have been directly touched by the events of this past week.

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Hear our prayers and answer according to your will, and in it all we pray that you

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will be honored through the advance of the gospel in ways that now would be perhaps beyond

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our ability to imagine.

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In Christ's name we pray, amen.

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I invite you now to open your Bible with me to the book of Galatians and the fifth chapter,

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Galatians chapter 5.

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I'm going to begin reading in verse 1 of Galatians 5.

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Please follow along in your Bible as I do so.

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It was for freedom that Christ set us free.

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Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of bondage.

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Hold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit

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to you.

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And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to

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keep the whole law.

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You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law.

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You have fallen from grace.

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For we through the Spirit by faith are waiting for the hope of righteousness.

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For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working

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through love.

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You were running well.

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Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

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This persuasion did not come from him who calls you.

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A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.

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I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will adopt no other view, but the one

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who is disturbing you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is.

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But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted?

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Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished.

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Would that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.

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Do you remember as a child perhaps your mother giving you lunch money and saying as you went

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out the door, now don't lose it.

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And sure enough by noontime when you were supposed to be able to buy lunch, the money

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had disappeared somewhere.

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Our study tells us about something that is far more precious than lunch money.

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And the Apostle Paul says to us, now don't lose this.

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The letter we are looking at, Galatians, was written by Paul because the Christians in

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that region of Asia Minor had had their faith undermined by false teaching.

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He had delivered to them the pure unadulterated gospel of the grace of God.

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The salvation that is a relationship with God is found by grace through faith in the

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cross sacrifice of Jesus, plus nothing else.

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Nothing of human works, nothing of law keeping, nothing of religious rituals.

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However, after Paul had left there, certain teachers came called Judaizers who taught

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that keeping the rituals of the Jewish law were necessary.

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For example, that of circumcision.

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They said that these rituals were necessary as an addition to faith.

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And in doing so, they hijacked the Galatians' confidence in the simple gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And apparently many of the Galatians had bought into this false gospel, deserting the true

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gospel.

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Paul is alarmed.

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If Paul were alive today, he would still be alarmed because the same heresy is still infecting

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the church.

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There are still those who add human works to grace, insisting that Christians must perform

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in a particular manner in order to really please God.

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They say the faith relationship is not enough in itself.

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It's a fine start perhaps.

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But there needs to be something more than just faith.

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You need to keep religious duty, or you need to conform your life to our rules.

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Then you will be pleasing to God.

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This idea is taught regarding salvation.

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There are those who teach that salvation is by faith plus baptism, or church membership,

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or the sacraments of the church, or that it's by faith plus giving up all of your sins and

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living a good life.

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But it's always salvation by faith plus something.

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But the teaching is also applied regarding the Christian life.

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There are those who say, yes, it is true that our pleasing the Lord as Christians is a walk

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of faith, but there are also certain rules of conduct that you must follow.

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There are certain expectations that we have of you.

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And if you keep those expectations, then you will be pleasing to God.

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For example, there are those who say, if you really want to be pleasing to God, it's not

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only a walk of faith, but you have to have devotions every day of your life.

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You have to spend an hour in devotions, in Bible reading, in prayer, in order to be pleasing

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to God.

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There are those who say, if you're going to be pleasing to God, it's a walk of faith,

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but you also need to be a soul winner.

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You need to be a person who's out there on the streets confronting people about their

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need for Jesus Christ.

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You must be a soul winner if you're really going to be pleasing to God.

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Others say, the Christian life is a walk of faith, but you need to be in church.

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And every time those church doors are open, you and your family should be there.

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Then there are those who say, regarding this idea, the Galatian heresy being applied to

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the Christian life, that the Christian life is a walk of faith, but you have to tithe.

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You have to give 10% of your income to God if you really want to please the Lord.

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You say, wait a minute, I thought all those things were required.

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I want to say to you, not one of those things is required.

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Not one of them.

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I know that some of us think that God is not pleased with us unless we perform in some

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way.

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But only then is God satisfied.

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If we have tried hard enough, if we've kept this evangelical ritual, whatever it may be,

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in addition to our simply loving Jesus and walking with Him by faith.

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Today the church is infected with this idea that the Christian life certainly is a relationship,

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but it's also got to be certain rules that you keep.

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What the Apostle Paul is saying in our text today is this, that Christ set you free from

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the bondage of performance.

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The bondage of performance.

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You don't have to do something to be accepted by Him.

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He accepts you in Christ as having Christ's righteousness already.

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It is not necessary for you to perform in some way to try to further please Him.

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Your righteousness comes by faith, not by the works that you practice.

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You see, God accepts you on the basis of the relationship that you have with Him through

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faith in His Son.

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Not because you act right.

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Not because you work hard to avoid some sin.

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But because you have a relationship with Him.

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Paul relates what I think are some of his deepest convictions in the book of Galatians.

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Convictions about this spiritual error that had led the Galatian believers from their

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freedom in Christ into bondage and obligation.

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It is this heresy, at least in part, that causes so many Christians for whom Jesus died

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and whom Jesus set free to live their lives in shame and guilt and a constant sense of

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failure.

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It is because this heresy has crept into our thinking.

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Paul begins sharing his heart by telling us of his contention that you can lose your freedom.

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Paul is in a battle for the faith of these people, but he is also in a battle for the

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definition of grace itself.

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And he is very alarmed by what he sees.

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He sees the Galatians giving up the concept of grace, adding to that works, and in doing

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so losing their inheritance in Christ, their rights as the sons of God, their joy in their

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salvation.

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He seems to list for us here some of the consequences of becoming performance oriented in our faith.

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Becoming a slave to regulations.

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First of all, he says in verse 2, if that is you, Christ will not benefit you.

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What he is saying here is that Jesus brings to us a wealth of spiritual blessings, but

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these are lost.

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They are of no profit, no benefit to us if we insist on adding works to our faith.

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If we insist on trying to work our way to God.

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If we insist on laboring in some fashion in order to try to please Him.

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Paul says when you adopt that mindset, the benefits that Jesus died for and gave to you

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are of no benefit any longer.

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Here's what Paul says, to live by grace means to depend on God's abundant supply of every

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need.

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To live by law means to depend upon my own strength, the flesh, and be left to get by

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without God's supply.

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That's what Paul is saying here.

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When we become works and performance oriented, we rob ourselves of our spiritual inheritance

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and lose our spiritual power and our salvation, assurance, and joy.

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Secondly, Paul says you can lose your freedom, be careful, because here's another consequence.

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You obligate yourself to the whole law, he says.

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To start down this road of keeping rules only brings increasing slavery.

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He is saying here, look, if you're going to begin keeping rules, then you have to understand

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that you have to keep all of them.

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He says the law is not like a cafeteria where you pick out what you want to keep.

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If you pick out one thing, you're obligated to all of it.

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You place yourself under all of it.

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Worsby tells about a motorist in his book, a motorist who gets a ticket for running a

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red light.

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When the officer is talking to him, he begins to protest and he says, well, listen officer,

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I've never killed anybody or stolen anybody.

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But of course he still gets the ticket because he broke the law.

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Worsby then comments, no amount of obedience can make up for one act of disobedience.

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No amount of obedience can make up for one act of disobedience.

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James puts it this way, if you keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, you're guilty

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of it all.

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The law is going to get you.

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You're condemned under it.

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Paul goes on to say, if you're going to take this mindset of law keeping, you've been severed

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from Christ.

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Some therefore understand this to mean that you're cut off from your salvation.

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That is not what Paul is talking about.

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But he is saying that we're cut off from Christ as the energizing power of our lives.

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That we no longer remain in this sphere where Jesus is at work.

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And because of that, it's as though we've been severed from him and we've fallen from

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grace.

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He's not talking about salvation, falling out of salvation, but he's saying we're falling

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out of the sphere of grace into which we were born again.

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The idea is that the law and grace do not mix.

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And if we can insist on adding rule keeping to our understanding of salvation or of the

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Christian life, we're no longer operating in the grace of God.

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Legalism has replaced God's grace.

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There are churches that teach a mixture of grace and rule keeping.

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To them to be saved you must believe, but then do something else.

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To others they teach to be a good spiritual Christian, you must live a life of faith,

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but then also do these other things.

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Paul is warning us not to allow anyone to lay upon us a yoke of man-made obligations.

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This brings some questions to mind, doesn't it?

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What about James, chapter 2, verse 24, where James says, a man is justified by works and

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not by faith alone.

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That seems to contradict everything Paul says, doesn't it?

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A man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

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It's for that reason that Martin Luther did not accept the book of James as being in the

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Bible, because he could not reconcile what James is saying, what Paul is saying, and

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he was so committed to the truth of justification by faith.

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So he threw James out.

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We don't have to do that, by the way.

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Because you see, James is talking about a different aspect of salvation.

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He is saying if a person lays claim to faith, if he says he is justified, it's not enough

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just to use words.

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There have to be works that back it up.

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There has to be evidence in his life, and that is James' whole point in all five chapters

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of his book, how God changes the life of the person who genuinely comes to faith.

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Somebody else says in response to what we've said this morning already, well then, pastor,

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are you saying that all rules are wrong?

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And I can throw off the rules of my parents, because those are man-made obligations, aren't

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they?

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Or I can throw off the lifestyle regulations on my college campus.

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I don't need to worry about the red lights anymore.

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Those are man-made rules, and Christ has set me free.

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Well, obviously, rules are necessary for any community, whether it be the community of

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the home and the family, or it be a college campus, or it be the civic community in which

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we live, rules are necessary.

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However, and here's the point, if we say that keeping those rules is the way that we please

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God, if it is the keeping of those rules in our thinking that makes us spiritual, then

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we have crossed the line into heresy.

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Rules are a part of life.

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They're necessary.

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But the point is that when we use those rules as a way of kind of earning brownie points

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with God, or thinking somehow God is more pleased with us because we have our devotions

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every day, or because we memorize a hundred verses a year, or because we tithe our money,

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that God is more pleased with us and this is evidence that I am spiritual because I

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do these things, then that is legalism.

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That is the very heresy Paul is warning about in the book of Galatians.

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Not that any of those things are wrong.

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They're good.

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But we dare not set them up as the standard for us being pleasing to God and spiritual

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people.

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Paul gives a confession in the next few verses, verses five and six.

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He says, confession is this, that we hope expectantly for complete righteousness.

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Some people would think after what Paul is saying here about freedom that he must be

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rather careless or apathetic about people living right.

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Paul is deeply committed to righteousness in the life.

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He was passionate about it, but he knew that righteousness would never come through human

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performance.

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It only comes by faith in the promises of God.

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So Paul writes of a condition of righteousness that is yet in the future.

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He says we hope for righteousness.

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He's talking about the culmination of our righteousness on that day when Jesus comes

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for us.

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Already, God looks at us as being righteous in Christ.

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Romans five one, therefore having been declared righteous in the eyes of God by faith, we

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have peace with God.

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But later in the very same book of Romans, the apostle Paul says we're still waiting

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for righteousness in another sense.

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He says we groan within ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit waiting eagerly

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for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

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He's thinking about that time when we will be with Jesus and changed completely to be

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like him, body, soul, and spirit.

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Paul says after our initial justification, which was by faith and through the spirit,

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so now we hope for the culmination of our righteousness by faith and through the spirit,

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not by works and through our own self-effort, our own performance.

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He says it is by faith and through the spirit that we yet long for the culmination of the

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righteousness that God has promised to us.

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That is a hope for all who belong to Jesus Christ.

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Paul's point here is that righteousness from beginning to end, from the very moment of

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justification to the time of our glorification when we're with Jesus, righteousness from

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beginning to end is by faith and apart from works.

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He ratifies this in Romans 1.17 where he says, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed

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from faith to faith as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith.

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But I want to get to Paul's conclusions in verses 7 through 12 as he rather brings this

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argument to its head.

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In verses 7 through 12 he shares several conclusions with us, first about true believers, then

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about the false teachers, and finally about the cross itself.

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He says about true believers, they will continue in the truth.

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They will continue on in the truth.

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He says, you were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth?

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Paul is here commenting upon their beginning, but is saying something's happened.

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And he uses a very common metaphor in his thinking, and that is the metaphor of an athletic

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race.

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He says, you were chugging along pretty well doing that marathon, but somebody cut you

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off.

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Somebody caused you to stumble.

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Somebody caused you to step out of the race.

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He says, what's happened?

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He says, this persuasion, this influence that did that is not from God.

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And he says, I want you to know that it's dangerous.

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He said, it's like leaven.

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It will affect everything.

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It's like yeast that works through the whole batch of dough.

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That little bit of leaven, that false teaching about grace that you have accepted, is going

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to ruin it all.

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He goes on to state his confidence in them in the Lord.

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I like the way he says that, I have confidence in you in the Lord.

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I'm not sure he had confidence in them unless it was in the Lord.

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But in the Lord, he had confidence in these Galatians that they would continue on, that

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they would not allow their minds to settle down and accept this false gospel that had

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entered in.

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Because Paul is convinced, as I am convinced, because I believe the Bible clearly teaches

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this, that true believers will continue in the truth.

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We who are true believers may stumble here and there, we may accept something that's

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false here or believe something that's not true there, but inevitably we will be brought

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back to the truth by the Holy Spirit.

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And that is what Paul is saying here.

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One of the evidences that a person is genuinely a believer is that he continues on in the

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faith.

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And Paul is just convinced in the Lord that they're genuine, that they will continue.

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Paul then has a conclusion regarding the false teachers.

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He says they will come into judgment.

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These false teachers had disturbed them.

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Interesting picture in the word disturbed.

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It means literally to shake back and forth in the pictures of a dog that gets a hold

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of something like a little rag doll or maybe the newspaper or a ball he's playing with

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and he begins to shake it back and forth.

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It makes me dizzy to do that.

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He is saying that that's what the Galatians were like.

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These false teachers had come and grabbed a hold of them and just shaken them back and

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forth with their false teaching.

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They had troubled them.

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They had upset their minds and their confidence in the Lord.

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Paul didn't know the exact identity of who the key individual was that was responsible

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for this false teaching.

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He says whoever he is, he is going to bear his burden.

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He is going to be condemned because of this.

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Paul has this confidence about false teachers.

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They will come into judgment.

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God will deal with them in his way and in his time, but they will come into judgment.

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Finally, Paul has a conclusion he wants to share regarding the cross.

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He says the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished if I preach circumcision.

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In other words, Paul is saying here that those who want to make their own way to God, those

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who want to add things on to the simple gospel of the grace of God, those who want to try

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to do religion their own way are going to be tripped up by the cross.

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He says let me tell you this about the cross.

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It is a marvelous means of salvation, but it presents a stumbling block to people who want

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to do it their own way.

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The word stumbling block, there is a particular word that Paul draws upon from a trap.

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Let's think of it in terms of a mousetrap.

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It's that little piece of the trap in the center where you place the peanut butter or

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the cheese.

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That little piece of wood.

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That is what he is talking about here.

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Or to use a different kind of trap, it is that stick that holds up the box.

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Remember as a kid trying to catch birds, putting a box out there and some seed under it and

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a stick and then pulling out the stick so the box would fall on the birds?

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It's the word for that stick.

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Paul is saying here people who want to do religion their own way, create their own way

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to God, who want to add on things to what God has said are people who are going to find

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that the cross is the trap for them.

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You will not let them get away with it because at the cross God provided salvation and righteousness

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as a gift.

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The cross is God's mean of providing righteousness to all who believe and those who try to go

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some other way are going to find the cross to be a stumbling block.

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One of the restaurant chains has this little phrase.

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It says no rules, just right.

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I would like to take that thought and apply it to the gospel of grace.

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No rules, just righteousness.

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You don't have to keep rules to impress God or to please God or to make God happier with

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you than he is already happy with you in Jesus.

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You don't have to become more righteous in his sight.

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You are completely righteous in his sight.

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No rules, just righteousness.

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Many of us feel comfortable with a certain level of legalism.

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We rather like to have the standards out here where we can see them and measure ourselves

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because it makes us feel good about ourselves when we are keeping those standards.

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That is nothing less than pride.

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On the other hand, there are those who have been taught these external rules and they

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know they never keep them.

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Their lives are filled with guilt and shame.

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I preached in a church one time and the people came to me after a few weeks and said, you

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are not preaching the Bible.

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I said why not?

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They said because we don't feel guilty enough when we leave here.

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I understood exactly what they were saying because they had been taught for many years

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the idea of legalism, that they needed to feel guilty in order to feel good, that they

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had to go away from church feeling ashamed of their failures in order to think that somehow

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now I am pleasing God because I feel ashamed enough.

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Robbed of their joy and their freedom in Christ.

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There are those who see the message of grace as being just too easy.

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It just can't be that simple.

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They fear that the message of grace is going to lead people into careless living.

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Oh, people will just do whatever they want to do if you teach them the grace of God.

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But they are deceived.

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Jesus Christ set you free from the bondage of performance.

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Today I want to urge you to live in the spiritual freedom of Christ, not in the human legalisms

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of religion.

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Don't allow yourself or others to force you into some mold of their making and to make

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you feel as though if you don't keep their standards then you are not spiritual.

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The story is told of Hans the tailor.

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He had a reputation of doing wonderful suits.

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One day an influential businessman was visiting the city in which Hans worked.

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When he heard about Hans he went to order a suit and he went to work on the suit.

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He came to pick it up eventually.

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But the customer found that one sleeve was twisted this way and the other sleeve was

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twisted that way and one shoulder bulged out and another caved in.

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So he pulled and he twisted and finally he managed to make his body fit into this suit

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that Hans had prepared for him.

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As he was riding on the bus one of the passengers noticed his odd appearance and asked him if

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Hans the tailor had made his suit.

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And the man replied affirmatively.

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The other bus rider said, well amazing I knew that he was a good tailor but I had no idea

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he could make a suit fit so perfectly someone as deformed as you.

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Commenting on this Richard Foster says, often that is just what we do in church.

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We get some idea of what the Christian faith should look like then we push and shove people

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into the most grotesque configurations until they fit wonderfully.

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That is death he says.

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It is a wooden legalism which destroys the soul.

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Legalism might be defined as obedience without love.

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What we are going to discover as we go on and study Galatians chapter 5 is that there

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are no rules except that of love.

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And we are going to see that God is pleased not because we keep some external standard

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that we create or someone else creates for us.

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But God is pleased because he sees us loving and he is the one who puts that love in our

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hearts.

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And he changes us from the inside out.

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He doesn't try to conform us from the outside in.

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Would you pray with me?

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I remember there were a lot of us this morning including myself who grew up in teaching that

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was some form of legalism.

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That is so hard to flush out of our minds.

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So difficult to deal with because there are many of us today who are hindered in our walk

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with you because we think we are not performing well enough.

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And there are others of us who have this standard set out there and we have performed well and

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we are proud of it.

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Lord help us to get out of our hearts the false teaching and the heresy that Paul was

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so concerned about in this book of Galatians.

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And I pray that this week we will walk in the freedom of Jesus.

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For some of us that will be a new liberating joyous exhilarating experience as we lay aside

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the bondage of rules and understand that whether it is salvation or it is our walk with you

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that it is by faith through the spirit.

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Oh Lord teach us to walk that way.

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To live that way in the freedom of Jesus.

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In his name I pray.

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Amen.

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God bless you.

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We are dismissed.

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We are dismissed