Faith Expressing Itself in Love

 “Faith Expressing Itself Through Love”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Nov 10, 2019

Text: Galatians 5:2-15 // Series: Galatians: Freedom Through Christ  

Welcome, friends.  My name is Brad Sumner, I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge and it is our privilege and pleasure to have you here with us today.   

One of the books that captivated me as a child growing up was the story of Harriet Tubman.  Harriet was an African America slave who escaped to freedom via a secret network of sympathizers known as the Underground Railroad.  She eventually made her way from the deep south to the north- eastern US to St Catherine’s Ontario.  But instead of staying put and enjoying her freedom and liberty in Canada, she chose to undertake a daring and dangerous series of rescues back into the deep south to bring out family members and others from slavery.  She became such a well-known conductor on the underground railroad she even had a nickname: “Moses”.  Her commitment to lead people out of slavery into freedom is now being brought to the big screen this month in the movie Harriet. 

The theme of slavery and freedom comes up time and time again in the New Testament book of Galatians, which we have been studying this fall.  But it’s not a slavery to other people, it is a slavery to wrong ideas and wrong thinking about how we relate to God that has the author of Galatians so concerned. 

Galatians was written by the Apostle Paul was one of the early leaders in the Christian movement and the author of many of the books of the New Testament.  Paul was born into a Jewish family and grew up under the tutelage of one of the most prominent Jewish rabbis of his day, Gamaliel.  But he also was born in and grew up in a Roman city: Tarsus in Cilicia, in what is now modern-day Turkey.  So he had both Jewish religious heritage and Roman citizenship.  All of his early life, he was so zealously committed to keeping the tenants of Jewish Law as recorded in the Old Testament.    

But the book of Acts records for us that Paul has a radical encounter with Jesus that converts him out of his former way of life.  He spends the rest of his life as an apostolic church planter in non-Jewish areas where he sees incredible response to the gospel amongst both Jews and non-Jews.  And Galatia was one of those early cities where Paul went and started a Christian community. He has heard, however, that there is tension building between those from a Jewish background who are advocating continuance under Jewish OT Law & those who are saying “no, in Christ we’re free”    

So Paul writes a letter to a group of people who are in danger, in his mind, of going backward into slavery.  He is determined to help them maintain the freedom and liberty that he himself has found in following Jesus and he wants that both for them and for you and I as contemporary readers also. 

Turn with me in your Bibles or devices to Galatians 5.  We’ll tackle the first half of chapter 5 this week, second half next week and then all of chapter 6 on Nov 24 before we head into Advent series on PEACE starting Dec 1. 

Listen to the strident language Paul uses in Galatians 5:1 (NLT)

“So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.”

His image here is that of a yoke.  A yoke of slavery, says the ESV & some other translations.  Just like chains bound together human slaves that were being trafficked, an ancient yoke held together two cattle.  The yoke rested on their shoulders to ensure that they were pulling in the same direction.  It harnessed the power of the oxen so that one could not head in one way and the other in a different way.  Paul says firmly and clearly: if you want to harness yourself to the Law, the Torah, the ancient rules and laws that God gave to God’s people Israel back at Mount Sinai, then you are putting yourself into a locked down relationship with something that is heading somewhere.  It’s a yoke that doesn’t lead to freedom. It’s a yoke of slavery. 

This same language of the Law as a burdensome yoke is used by the Apostle Peter in Acts 15 where he is arguing for unity in the Christian community. He says in Acts 15:10 “So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? 11 We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.”

Perhaps Peter here is harkening back to what Jesus told his disciples in Matt 11 where Jesus takes this same metaphor and turns it on its head.  Jesus says “my yoke is easy; my burden is light. Work & walk with me”. Jesus is saying that relating to God isn’t first and foremost about keeping all the right rules, it’s about relating to the right person: the Triune God. 

So the first thing we see here in the discussion about the yoke of slavery to the law is that you and I need to Be careful what (or who) you hitch yourself to   (Steve Allen, American humourist and atheist once said

• “Ideas have consequences, and totally erroneous ideas are likely to have destructive consequences.” – Steve Allen (On the Bible, Religion & Morality)

The false teachers were advocating an idea that sounded good to the Galatians: Their argument might have been something like "How can you ever hope to win the battle against your evil desires? There is only one way. Come under the yoke of the law. The law was given to guard, protect and keep you from evil. Live under it as your master and guide." But Paul says in contrast to this message of the false teachers, in Christ, you and I have "died to the law" (2:19), that "we are no longer under the supervision of the law" (3:25) and that we should not let ourselves "be burdened again by a yoke of slavery," to the law (5:1).  If you are set free, you do not go back, except for the purpose of helping others get free. 

Paul keeps right on going in Galatians 5:2

“Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. 4 For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”

Here we have to pause and deal with an uncomfortable bit of Torah observance: male circumcision.  This is a non-issue for us in the modern western world.  If you want to do the snip-snip, fine. If not, whatever. 

But in the ancient world, this was a massive deal.  Circumcision was given as the external sign of the covenant God made with God’s people.  It signaled their set-apartness from other nations.  It marked them as different.  Unique.  It was practiced by all Jewish parents – on the eighth day, they would take their sons to be circumcised and blessed.

And so Paul, who himself would have been circumcised because he grew up as a good Jew, gets right to the heart of this argument.  The false teachers are saying that in order to become part of God’s family, you must be circumcised.  Pause for a minute and think about that.  These are adults that we are taking about.  The cost of conversion was very HIGH! 

But notice what Paul is saying that the false teachers are saying: they are not saying circumcision is a useful add on to Christianity. They are saying that in order to be made right with God, you must be circumcised.  And that, Paul says, is an addition to the gospel of grace by faith that cannot be tolerated.  He says if you want to add to your salvation in that way, oh, you best add alright – you had best ADD in all 613 commands of Torah that God gave to Moses!  If you want to keep that one – circumcision – you best get busy with the task of keeping them all.  Why only that one? 

I suspect that circumcision, along with food laws and sabbath keeping were chosen by the false teachers because they are all external. They are easy to police and see if a person is observing them or not.  Even circumcision (because in the ancient world there was no such thing as privacy – bathing was communal and so people would know if you were circumcised or not).  Paul is going to make a series of uncomfortable jokes or play on words about cutting. As in cutting the foreskin via circumcision. 

He says “If you are trying to make yourself right with God but keeping the Torah, oh you are cutting yourself alright – you are cutting yourself right off from right relationship with Jesus Christ!  Cut it out!” 

Paul’s point is in Galatia and in our day & time: You and I do not get to add anything to saving faith.  Faith comes by grace through faith.  It is the free gift of God, not by works of righteousness that we have done but according to God’s mercy, God saved us.  We often sing about this truth – that grace & grace alone is what makes us right with God.  Billy Graham’s grandson, author & pastor Tullian Tchividjian puts this in math terms:

• Jesus + Nothing = Everything
• Jesus + Anything = Nothing

 In other words, if you have Jesus, you don’t need to keep adding things into your relationship with God in order to build it up. And if you do, you don’t actually understand that power of the grace of God that saved you.

If you or I are trying to add to our salvation, it is like taking a ladder into an elevator so you can do some climbing on the way up!  Don’t do it. Receive.

Paul continues his logic in Galatians 5:5-6:

“But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. 6 For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.”

This is like a beautiful and concise summary of Galatians.  Paul says that those who have placed their confidence in Christ are living a Life of Faith. 

• A life lived marked by the Spirit (5:5a)

Our Confession of Faith describes this beautifully: “The Holy Spirit, the Counsellor, is the creative power, presence, and wisdom of God. The Spirit convicts people of sin, gives them new life, and guides them into all truth. By the Spirit, believers are baptized into one body. The indwelling Spirit testifies that they are God’s children, distributes gifts for ministry, empowers for witness, and produces the fruit of righteousness. As Comforter, the Holy Spirit helps God’s children in their weakness, intercedes for them according to God’s will, assures them of eternal life.”

• A life of expectant righteousness (5:5b)

One day, God is going to declare righteous those who are part of Messiah’s family.  Because of their faith not because of their deeds.

God’s verdict over your life will be fully and finally announced in the future. AND this future verdict is what gives meaning to the present when someone believes into relationship with Jesus. Friend, some of you are wrestling with a fear and dread about what will be spoken over your life at the end of it. You worry that you may not have done enough good stuff to make God happy with you.  That kind of living is slavery! The language of the NT is that those who have placed their faith in Jesus have a kind of humble confidence that is not rooted in themselves but in what God has done in Christ Jesus. And we live out of that place – waiting to eagerly hear God proclaim and declare us righteous. So if you have not taken that step, today is your day to receive God’s gift of grace. Through faith. By prayer.  At the end of this talk the prayer team will be at the back, go to them.  Pray with them. Say “I want to hear God speak over me the words “you are my beloved son or daughter in whom I am well pleased.” 

• A life overflowing with love for others (5:6)

Paul’s point is LOVE.  Our post enlightenment sensibilities suggest that once you say the word LOVE you should never say anything sharp. Nope!

Saving faith is not only connected to future hope, but also to present action

• Faith involves the head, heart and hands
  • Faith is not merely intellectual assent to a bunch of good or interesting ideas…
  • Faith HAS to be lived out / expressed in meaningful ways in the world

This is why people from Jericho band together to sponsor three Syrian families over the past years.  This is why we send a team down to Guatemala every year – to display the love of Jesus practically to people in need.  This is why our kids bring money for missions projects. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.    

We have bought the lie that faith means my head thinks correctly and my heart feels warm toward God. But James says faith without deeds is dead.  

• Is my faith more intellectual, emotional or practical? Where do I need to grow?

Maybe for you, you are an activist.  You love well but you need to spend some more time learning to love God with your mind.  Learning. Listening to some good podcasts, reading some good books or articles online.  Maybe you are more of an intellect and you need to get out of your podcasts and books and pick up a serving towel and set some chairs up or take some granola bars and water to people who are without homes.   

What is important is faith. But faith always express itself in love. 

Paul continues with his cutting metaphors:  

“You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? 8 It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom.

The image is of a race. He says “you were running, who cut in on you?!”   I coached cross country and one of things that I would tell my runners all the time is not to let someone push ahead of you in the chute.  In fact, the rules of cross-country running state that if someone is pushing and trying to cut in on you in the chute as you approach the finish line, you are legally allowed to grab the jersey or the person in front of you so that your opponent cannot sneak in and steal your spot away from you. 

Paul says to his Galatians “you were off to a great start in the life of faith! BUT something happened.  Someone was holding you back.  Someone - the false teachers – were cutting in on you!  Don’t let them do that!”  And just as quickly as he started, he’s onto another word picture…

“This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough! 10 I am trusting the Lord to keep you from believing false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who has been confusing you.”

This is another favorite metaphor that Paul uses to describe both how good ideas and also bad ideas spread.  You put a little bit of yeast into some flour and water and wow… it really spreads. If we had more time we’d delve into this duality Paul presents here: do we just sit back and let God handle these people or do we jump in and prevent false teaching from spreading? You’ll have to head to the Kwon’s Life Group to discuss that! J

Paul has a punch line in 5:12 he is building towards: Galatians 5:11-12

“Dear brothers and sisters, if I were still preaching that you must be circumcised—as some say I do—why am I still being persecuted? If I were no longer preaching salvation through the cross of Christ, no one would be offended. 12 I just wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves.”

The crudeness and harshness of Paul’s language gets a bit blunted in the NLT.  In the ESV it reads of those false teachers who advocate circumcision: “I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!”  Why trim just a bit off the top – cut the whole thing off!

Commentator G. Walter Hansen notes that Paul is “probably referring here to a barbaric ritual that actually took place in his day in Galatian pagan temples. The priests of Cybele, the mother goddess of the earth, castrated themselves with ritual pincers and placed their testicles in a box. (Such a box is now on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.) The false teachers were leading the Galatian Christians to think that the ritual of circumcision was a sacred act that would bring them into fellowship with God. But Paul has already said that "in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value" (5:6). Now he puts the ritual of circumcision in the same category as the ritual castration of the… priests of the mother-goddess of the earth, Cybele; it had no more significance to the Gentile Christians than any of the other barbaric, bloody rituals practiced in the ancient world.” 

We see how seriously Paul takes the false teaching that is gaining ground in Galatia.  According to Torah, if your testis were damaged to the point that you were unable to reproduce, you were cut off from membership in God’s people.  So in a clever rhetorical move, Paul is likening circumcision, the traditional ritual of Jewish physical membership in the community, to pagan religious cutting rituals (such as the self-mutilation the prophets of Baal did in Elijah’s day.) Paul isn’t making a rude joke. He’s saying “do you realize how series this is? Do you realize where this will take you?”

This isn’t about circumcision anymore. It is about what it represents both for them and for us.  It represents the notion that some people think we can relate to God anyway we want.  If we want to add into our Christian faith a little bit of Buddhism, no big deal.  If you want to add into your faith the notion that you have to also stay in God’s good books by works, not big deal.” But friends, it IS a big deal!  Once you start adding to the gospel, you no longer have the gospel.   Jesus + Anything = Nothing.  The minute you and I start to add to saving faith any kind of actions or attitudes that come from that “well, faith is great but JUST IN CASE there’s another way to God, I’m going to also make sure I cover that base as well.”  Friends, when we add or subtract anything to faith expressing itself in love, to use Paul’s pun, we need to CUT IT OUT!  Salvation is by grace thru faith alone

Paul makes his final point: Galatians 5:13-15

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. 14 For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”    15 But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.”

What’s fascinating here to me is that Paul is actually advocating a kind of reverse slavery.  He is saying, like Harriet Tubman, once you know and have experienced freedom, you are free and you are called to live in or into that freedom. BUT that freedom also binds you not to a rugged individualism but it binds you to the law of Love.  The law is fulfilled when you and I learn to “Love your neighbour as yourself”. 

Paul warns the Galatians not to get so caught up in internal discussions or squabbles in the Christian community that they forget to love themselves and also their neighbours.  Friends, this is why we exist as a church.  We are not here to form a warm club that you can come and meet all your friends weekly and feel good about yourself.  We exist so that you are fuelled and filled for the work and mission that God has called you to in the world.  You are called to embody the love of Christ everywhere you go.

What is an act of neighbour love that you will undertake this week?  Maybe there is a neighbour that needs help moving or a friend who is discouraged who needs a meal or childcare.  Maybe for you there’s another student in your class that struggles with English and you can spend some time helping tutor them as an act of love.  Maybe for you an act of love will be to help fund those who are going to Guatemala this spring.  Maybe for you it will be to donate clothes or furnishings to a family in need. 

The love of God is so precious that we dare not keep it to ourselves.  Our mission, our role is to be the healing hands and feet of Jesus in Clayton, Willoughby and beyond.  The freedom we have in Christ is a freedom to serve.  To, like Harriet Tubman, head back into enemy territory and lead others to life and love and hope and peace.  The worship team is coming and I want to invite you to stand with me and we are going to sing this song as a song of declaration.  We are going to invite God to use us to demonstrate God’s love to the world that needs to taste the freedom that Jesus offers.  Would you stand and sing with me? 

Benediction: Receive this benediction written by Richard Bott

In a world that cries out, “Fear me!” We will listen to Jesus’ words, “Don’t be afraid!” In a world that wants us to hate the other… We will live Jesus’ call to, “Love God. Love your neighbour, as you love yourself.” In a world that radicalizes… We, too, will be radical. Radical with our hospitality. Radical with our hope. Radical with our love.” Jericho, you have gathered together to worship God, now go from this place read to be who you were called to be: people of faith, expressing that faith in acts of love.  Amen.