Galatians 5 (Part 1)

Galatians chapter 5. I was enjoying the last song that we were singing in worship because it's very declarative, right? It—I believe. And we went through all these various things that we say, I believe. I believe in God the Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Resurrection. Wonderful! Glorious! I mean, it's just good, isn't it? Just to say, I believe. These are things that I believe in and what those are called are doctrines. Just in case you were wondering—that's a declarative statement like that is called a doctrine. Let me put up on the screen for you the definition of the word, doctrine. Word definition: Doc·trine (noun) a belief or set of beliefs E.g. “the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection” It is a noun, and it means, a belief or set of beliefs, such as the doctrine of Christ's resurrection and so forth. When somebody says, I believe in the doctrine of, he simply or she is simply saying, I believe in the belief, or I have a belief concerning this thing, whatever. Here's the next question that we need to ask ourselves, and that is, where did doctrines come from? Well, I think we could probably all agree on the fact that the only valid source for Christian doctrine is through the Bible. And that may sound like a big duh, like where else would you get them? WHERE DO DOCTRINES COME FROM? The only valid source for Christian doctrine is through the Holy Bible. The only valid source for Christian doctrine is through the Holy Bible. But let me tell you something, over the course of many years we have seen doctrines rise up based not so much on the word, but more on experience, sometimes even emotion. We have to be very, very careful. And remember that anything that is true, which is what a doctrine states, a doctrine is a statement or a declaration of truth, but it must be founded on the Word of God, right? Obviously, that's very important. We'll just agree to say that all doctrine needs to be a systematic statement of truth that originates in the pages of the Bible. Does this sound reasonable? I hope so, I didn't really get a response from anybody. It's like– okay, yeah, yes, amen, yes and amen. I'm not that kind of a person that needs a whole lot of that from you. But, just once in a while, it's nice to just know that you're awake. Thank you. Here's the problem, because it all sounds good and fine. But here's the problem sometimes with doctrines. Sometimes we get so fixated on doctrines that we lose sight of the very Word of God from which they come. Now I want to let that sink in for just a moment. But I believe that there is a potential danger because, you see, our belief really should not come from doctrines. It should come from the scripture upon which those doctrines are based, the Word of God. Because, you see, doctrines only go so far. When we were singing that song, again, it's great to sing, I believe. But, doctrines, all doctrines do is tell you what you believe. They don't explain why, do they? Not once during that song did we say, I believe in God the Father because, or here's why. And that's okay because that's not what doctrines do, doctrines don't necessarily explain the why, they explain the what, and that's just as far as they go. They don't tell you why you believe what you believe. But it's important for us to know why we believe what we believe because if we go around just spouting doctrine to people and say, well, I believe, and then somebody comes along and says, well, why do you believe that? But we've never ever stopped to think about it. We're going to be caught off guard and say something stupid like, it's what I've been told, or something like that. And you know what? That's not going to fly. In fact, the apostle Peter mentioned this. Let me put this up on the screen for you from 1 Peter 3, verse 15. 1 Peter 3:15b (NIV) Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the REASON for the hope that you have.

The second part of that verse says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you (not just) to give (tell them what you believe, but) the REASON for the hope that you have.” See, that word, reason is very, very important in that verse because reason is all about why, to reason through and to say, this is why I believe what I believe. There's a reason behind it, you see. It's not just an empty doctrinal statement where somebody said, this is what you believe, and we parrot that belief, you see. Peter encourages us to go on to give the reason for our hope, and that is so important. But let me explain one of the problems that goes along with doctrines, because and I'm not criticizing doctrines, please understand. I mean, you go to our website or you pick up that little booklet we have in the entryway that's all about Calvary Chapel. You'll see our doctrinal statement of faith in both of those locations, and it's there, right? But the statements of what we believe are not all you're going to find there. You're going to find a host of scripture references that support—the what, that we believe. But all that being said, there are challenges with doctrines. And one of the real problems with doctrines is when we begin to interpret the Word of God by our doctrines. You see, doctrines are supposed to be interpreted by the Word of God, not the other way around. We look at our doctrines and we say, we ask ourselves the question, is this a biblical doctrine? And we don't look at the Bible and say, does that match my doctrine? See, that's wrong, that's backwards. If you begin to interpret the Word of God through the lens of a doctrine, you are in for some issues potentially. And I think that what can actually happen is we end up closing our hearts to what God’s Word has to tell us in the whole counsel of His word because we feel that what we're reading might somehow threaten our doctrine. You understand what I'm saying? It's very, very important that you get this because as we get into some of the first verses of 1 Corinthians, or excuse me, of Galatians chapter 5, I'm going to be quoting 1st Corinthians later, which is why I was thinking of that. But here in Galatians chapter 5, we're going to be looking at the first 4 verses, and I dare say, we might do a little challenging here today. Let's go ahead and read those first 4 verses of Galatians 5, can we?

Stop there, if you would, please. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, it is always our desire to come to you with humble and open hearts. Never more so than now, we pray that you would fill us with understanding. And Lord, as we look at some very, very challenging and strong verses written by the Apostle, I pray, my Father, God, that you would help our hearts to be completely open to what you're saying here. And I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, Paul is obviously trying to say something here in these verses. And as I said, it's a strong message. And I'll just tell you right off, it's a message that some Christians are not willing to listen to. They're not willing to hear. And that is because they are interpreting Paul's words here in these first 4 verses through the lens of their doctrine, and it is a particular doctrine. And I want to be very careful about how I show this to you, because I don't want you to jump to conclusions about what I'm going to say here, because you need to hear me out on this whole subject. But there is a phrase that I often hear Christians say that really isn't as much a doctrine as much as it is a summary of a doctrine. And it goes like this: “ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED” The doctrine of “ETERNAL SECURITY” ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED. Essentially, that is the summary of a doctrine that we call, The doctrine of ETERNAL SECURITY.

Let me stop just for a moment here to say I believe in the doctrine of eternal security, maybe not the same way you do, but the end result is I am 100% secure in my salvation. And so, I want you to know that I believe in eternal security. But I'll tell you another thing, I very much dislike the phrase, once saved, always saved. I believe it's misleading. I believe that it can create misunderstandings, and I believe it can shut people off from opening up their hearts to what the Word of God has to say in a larger vein. And there's one particular verse, which I'll amplify here a bit. But it is, if you'll look with me again in your Bible at verse 2, Paul makes a very strong statement saying, "Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you." And what we're looking at here when we look at this verse is we're looking at a very clear statement that Paul is making, and he's clearly telling the Christians, and this has been the message of Galatians throughout the entirety of this book. He is telling them, listen, if you embrace the teaching of these Jewish legalists who have come and invaded your church, and if you begin to adopt circumcision as a requirement to what must be done to be saved, in addition to believing in Jesus, I am here to tell you that you will render the cross of Christ useless to save. And that is what Paul is saying. And if you need to see it in a few other translations, here you go. Galatians 5:2

“Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.” The ESV is on the top, that's the one we just read.

The New American Standard Bible (NASB) goes like this: "Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you (you) receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you." “Indeed (New King James), I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing." And then finally from the NIV: "Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all." Wow. I mean, that is just, that's hard, that's a strong statement, but I'm not making it, Paul is the apostle, the other Paul. And it's a very difficult statement to hear, but it is almost impossible to hear if you are interpreting it through the lens of once saved, always saved. A number of years ago, I actually posed this question to a dear brother in the Lord. We were traveling back and forth to Boise because I was teaching a college course at the time over at an extension campus for Calvary Chapel over in Boise, and he wanted to take the class that I was taking. So we engaged in a lot of conversation on the way to and from Boise during that semester. And we got into talking about this whole idea of that phrase, once saved, always saved. And I shared with him, I didn't like that phrase, that I believed in eternal security, but I didn't like that phrase, I didn’t like that phraseology. I just felt it was misleading, and he was very comfortable with it. And we began to have a talk about it, and he asked me why I wasn't comfortable with it. And I said, well, Galatians 5:2 for example. And I began to quote the very verse that we're looking at here today. And I said, I just have a problem with subscribing to that sort of an idea or that phraseology in the light of Galatians 5:2. And I said, what do you think this verse means? And I was absolutely blown away, and I'm not criticizing here, but I was blown away by his response because we talked about it, we even opened up the Bible and looked at it, and he told me that he did not believe that verse was talking about salvation. He believed it was talking about something else, the loss of rewards or something like that. And I was flabbergasted because the whole Book of Galatians is about salvation, that's the point. The point is, Paul had brought the gospel to the churches in the region of Galatia, and that gospel was this: Jesus Christ died for your sins, and he is enough, and there's nothing else that needs to be added to that message.

And these Jewish legalists came along and said, that's not true, you must also A, B, C, D. And they included circumcision and keeping of the law and other aspects and so forth. And they were foisting all these things upon the people there in the region of Galatia and saying, you must also do that in order to be saved. And Paul's writing the letter to say, no! That's not true. That's not the gospel that I brought. That's not the gospel that was given to me by revelation. The gospel is this, Jesus is enough. You guys have been hearing me say this for weeks, those of you that have been hanging out in our Galatians study here. The problem with this man that I was talking to, this brother, was that his doctrine wouldn't allow him to entertain the idea that Paul was speaking of salvation in that verse when he said, if you allow this to happen, if you allow circumcision. We use, we don't, we're not being threatened with circumcision or even tempted by it these days in terms of understanding it as a mechanism of salvation, that's not something that we're being thrown. Nobody is, at least I don't know of any churches that are like really flying the circumcision banner, if you do, let me know. But I mean, today it's other things, I mean, it's, you got to go to church on this one day of the week, or you got to be baptized in water and particularly in the name of Jesus and preferably in our church and then, and all these other things that we, again, we've added to say it's belief in Jesus plus, there are other things today. And if those were the things Paul was dealing with, though, he would have addressed those too. But he was dealing here in Galatia with the issue of circumcision and the keeping of the law. And so, that's the point he brought up to them. But he's basically telling them here, if you embrace these other things, Christ will be of no value to you, right? I think that's how the NIV puts it, ESV is a little bit different. But see, if I look at that verse and I interpret it according to my doctrine and I say, yeah, that can't be what Paul's talking about there, you see, because I've got this doctrine and that doesn't allow me to embrace that. You see, that's dangerous because you've now basically admitted that you've closed yourself off to this complete revelation of God's word. Even if it's uncomfortable, even if it challenges your doctrine.

Listen, people, the Word of God better challenge our doctrines because the Word of God is the final word. We have no word above this word, right? And you know what? It's not just verse 2 that we have to grapple with. Look again at verse 4 in your Bible, he says, and he says, "You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified (or you who want to be justified or looking to be justified) by the law; you have fallen away from grace." Again, very challenging words; severed, fallen away. He's basically making a very simple statement, if you take the gospel of Jesus and add to it requirements, you're going to nullify the whole thing. And as he said in the first part of this letter, you end up with no gospel at all, when you take the gospel and try to add to it, right? And I'm going to repeat to you something here that is very important that I think you need to see, and that is that Paul is giving this warning to Christians, people who are already saved. He's giving a warning to them, if you allow yourself to be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you. Right? I want you to know also that this is not the only verse in the Bible by a long shot that gives a warning for believers. The New Testament epistles are written to believers, either churches or individuals, but Christians. And within the context of Biblical Christianity, there are warnings expressed throughout the course of God's Word that say to you and I, Be careful! Be alert! There are things that you need to be very watchful for. Let me show you one. From Hebrews chapter 3, verse 14, the writer of Hebrews says this:

For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Now, as we leave that up for just a moment, can you please take note of the fact that the writer of the, to the Hebrews is talking about the, what we share in Christ which is salvation, forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life. And he says here, we've come to share in it, if, and I want you to see that there is the word, if that appears in that verse, if, you see it's dependent upon something.

What is that if dependent upon? “...if indeed, we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” What are we confident in? Confidence in what? That's simple, confidence that the death Jesus died was enough. Right? It's really not that hard to understand. If we continue in the confidence that what Jesus did on the cross is enough, we come to share in Christ. Right? That's the point of what he's saying. You got to remember why even the Book of Hebrews was being written. There were reasons that those letters were written. It was a little bit different from Galatians, but there was—the Book of Hebrews, we call it Hebrews because it was written to Hebrew Christians, Jewish Christians. Jews who had come to faith in Christ, but we're being severely persecuted for that faith. They were being ostracized from their Jewish communities. Their ability to make money, carry on business, was gone. Because the rest of those who held to Judaism were basically saying, you Christians, forget it, you're out. And so, living life was becoming desperate. And there was a temptation among some of these Jewish Christians to revert back to Judaism to minimize some of this persecution that was going on in their lives. And the reason the author is writing this letter is to tell them there is no other way to be saved. You back out on Jesus and you back out on salvation, that was the point of the letter. And Hebrews contains incredibly strong warnings to Christians, right? But again, we're not going to be willing to even see those if I'm going to interpret yet another book of the Bible through my doctrine, right? I'm going to say, well, he's, that's not exactly what he's saying. At the risk of fatiguing you even further, I'm going to show you one more warning. This is the one I was talking about earlier from 1 Corinthians chapter 15. It goes like this:

And again, we come up to that word, if. Again, our salvation is predicated on faith, you guys, you knew that. We're saved by grace through what? Faith. (Ephesians 2:8-9 )Faith, that's confidence, I believe that Jesus Christ died for me on the cross. I am confident that when He died, He paid the full penalty of my sin. I believe, and I hold on to that confidence, and upon that, my salvation is predicated, right? It's faith in Jesus Christ. He even gives me the ability to have faith, by the way so I'm not pointing any fingers to me saying, look what I did, right? Even faith comes from God. But I've placed that faith in that finished work of Jesus Christ. And so the work is done, right? But look at some of the words. Can we put that one back up for just a second? Look at how he ends that passage.

He says, if you hold fast to the word that I preached to you, otherwise you've believed in vain. Believed in vain? What in the world is that all about? Believed in vain? How can you believe in vain? Well, you can't if you're looking at that verse through the lens of your doctrine of once saved, always saved. You can't. You can't even acknowledge that statement. You have to explain it away. You have to do some gymnastics to say, well, he's not talking about a believer believing in vain because a believer can't believe in vain. Then my question is this, then why did Paul and all the other biblical writers issue so many warnings to believers? We have to be careful, again, of adopting any belief that ends up closing our hearts from hearing the whole counsel of God's Word. Now let me just, again, assure you of something, and that is my personal belief in the security of our salvation. I have never lost a minute of sleep worrying that somehow my salvation was going to slip away. I have never been concerned about it. I believe that my salvation is secure. It is secure and it is eternal because Jesus is secure and He is eternal. And that's what it's predicated upon, you see, it's not predicated upon me. My salvation has very little to do with me, if anything at all.

In fact, the only thing really that I contributed to my salvation was my sin. The sin that I needed to be forgiven from. That's really the only thing I brought into the equation. You know? It was a lost and dying man. Lost, caught in sin, condemned to death, that's what I brought into the thing. He saved me out of that by His mercy and grace and the wonders of His incredible love. And so, I think that we ought to have a very secure understanding of our salvation in Jesus. It should be rock solid because Jesus is the rock. And He is not going anywhere. And because He's not going anywhere, your salvation isn't going anywhere. And because what He did on the cross was enough, it will always be enough. And you never have to worry about that. You never have to be concerned about that. You can have eternal security just knowing what you know. But listen, there, I know there are people who struggle with assurance. I get that. There are people, and I know that because I talk to them. And people will admit to me, from time to time, I struggle in the area of being assured of my salvation. And I go back and forth, and one day I feel good, and the other day I feel like I'm just not really sure, and so forth. And I think that there are probably a lot of reasons why people perhaps struggle in the assurance of their salvation. But I'm going to list for you here this morning five of them, if I may. Reasons why people lack the assurance of their eternal salvation. Reasons Why People Lack Assurance They can’t remember or point to a specific time when they received Christ. Number 1., They can't remember or point to a specific time when they received Christ. If you know the day and the hour that you came to Christ, wonderful. If you wrote it in the back of a Bible somewhere or whatever, and you can say, yeah, it was 1996, August 2nd, I came to Christ, prayed the sinner's prayer. Praise the Lord. But you know what, there's a whole heap of us that don't have a clue when we got saved. And I'm one of them. I have no idea when I got saved. I'll maybe when I see the Book of Life one day, maybe there's a little time and date next to my name. I'm sure God keeps pretty good records. And I'll probably even be surprised when I look at it and say, really? Is that when?

But you know what? Ultimately, people, if you're one of those who have struggled with the assurance of your salvation because you can't say like other people can, here's the day, here's the hour, here's the year or whatever. Don't worry about it. You know what the most important thing is? Is that today you're trusting Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. So, I would simply ask somebody who would say, I don't know when I got saved, I'd say, well, are you saved today? I mean, what that means is, are you trusting that what Jesus did on the cross was enough to save you from your sin? Today, do you know, right now, that what he did was enough? And if they say, oh yeah, that's all that's important! It doesn't matter when it happened. It just matters that you're here now, right? That's really the only important thing. Another reason why people struggle with assurance is because: Reasons Why People Lack Assurance They question the procedure they went through when they accepted Christ. They question the procedure they went through when they accepted Christ. And we talked about this a little bit ago. I mean, there are people out there, churches/teachers that emphasize a special verbal form that you have to say, or did you go forward at the end of a service? Like somehow that's in the Bible. Did you guys know that altar calls aren't in the Bible? And yet some we've exalted altar calls to the place of like, that's where you get saved. And if you didn't get saved at a good old-fashioned altar call, and preferably in a tent, we question whether you're really saved at all. And there are people that really struggle, and they'll see something in the Word of God about, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart (Romans 10:9), and they'll say, I don't know if I ever actually confessed with my mouth, which is a great thing to do. But do you think that what God was giving was a recipe there, a formula? Is that the way we see those things? I had a brother in the Lord just genuinely concerned about it, write me once and just say, the Word of God says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, and this sort of thing. And he goes so, are we talking that this is what we need to take people through this particular verbal form and stuff? I was like, okay, let me ask you a question. Let's imagine for a moment that you're witnessing to a guy who had cancer of the throat and had to have his voice box removed. And there is no confessing with his mouth anymore because he can't speak. But he comes to you and he says, I want to receive Jesus Christ as my Savior. Do you really think God's going to say, sorry, you're out. It says, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. And you're only able to do one out of two. You couldn't check both boxes, so I'm afraid, I'm sorry. But listen, I'm not putting those verses down. I'm simply saying God's not giving a formula there. He's helping us just to understand that, it's a decision, it's a proclamation on our part. And we can make that proclamation many different ways but the point is, we come to Christ and we receive him as Savior and Lord, right? But just because you didn't follow someone's predetermined formula for exactly how that needed to be said, and oh, by the way, when you end that prayer, it's in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and if you don't say that, you're not saved. See, that's not what we're doing here. And people get really hung up on that stuff. Another reason why people struggle in the area of their assurance is because they have sin struggles. Reasons Why People Lack Assurance Because of struggles they have with certain sins. Because of struggles they have with certain sins. And they wonder sometimes if a true believer would actually have those kinds of problems. Believe me, I've heard this one a lot. Pastor, I'd really like to believe that I'm saved, but I've just got some areas of sin in my life that just are beating the snot out of me. And I'm beginning to wonder if I've really truly been born again. And there could be various problems going on here, such as this person having a lack of real understanding as it relates to their own sinful nature, alongside a lack of insight concerning what God’s Word has to say about overcoming the flesh. And by the way, that's something we're going to be dealing with a lot in the next few weeks as we finish out Galatians. Paul is going to talk a lot about overcoming the flesh and what it takes to do that apart from law. And it's really good stuff. But the point of this whole thing is, sin is a universal struggle. And anybody who stops struggling with sin is either deceived or dead.

And if somebody said to me, I don't sin anymore, I would say that's interesting because my Bible says that if we say we have not sinned, we're deceiving ourselves. Sin is an unfortunate reality. The fact of the matter is where sin abounds, grace much more abounds than the blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing us, by the faith that we put in His finished work on the cross. And I'm not saying what I'm saying to justify your sin or give you a free pass because we need to be saying in prayer regularly, Lord, there's sin in my life, there's things that I need to be an overcomer concerning. And I pray that you would help take these weak areas and turn them into strong areas, and so forth. But listen, you're not going to get that one down perfectly this side of glory. This side of the veil, you're not going to reach sinless perfection. I'm sorry what you've been told so don't let that hinder your understanding or your assurance in your salvation. Okay? The fourth one, one of the fourth thing we're putting up here as reasons why people lack assurance is there's just sometimes a lack of faith in the finished work of Christ. Reasons Why People Lack Assurance Lack of faith in the finished work of Christ Lack of faith in the finished work of Christ And you know what I have found to be one of the major reasons why people have a lack of understanding related to the finished work of Jesus is because their eyes are so on themselves rather than on what Jesus did on the cross that's all they can see. And I've talked to people, and maybe you have too, where there's a statement, well, do you believe Jesus died for your sins? Well, yeah. Well, are you forgiven? I don't know. Why don't you know? Because the sin, this stuff that's going on and I just, and it's all about them. It's all about them. And what we have to do is we have to say, yeah, if you sit there and just focus on your sin, that's focusing on the problem. You're never going to see the solution because the problem will blind you. The problem will get so big it will eclipse your ability to see the solution. Jesus is the solution to our sin, to our, the issue of our need for forgiveness. We're all sinners. The apostle Paul said Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom I am the worst, he said, right? (1 Timothy 1:15) So, but if you're going to sit there and look at your me, and it's all about you. Then you're never going to get around to actually seeing the solution that God has provided to salvation. It's all about getting your eyes off you. Let's talk about what Jesus did. Let's talk about His death on the cross. Let's talk about how much He suffered. Let's talk about what He accomplished. Then let's ask the question again. Are you forgiven? Are you forgiven? See, when I start focusing on what He did, not what I've done, it puts it all into perspective. And then the fifth reason that many people lack assurance is that they've been taught that they should look to themselves and their own works as the primary proof of their salvation. Reasons Why People Lack Assurance They have been taught that they should look to themselves and their works as the primary proof of their salvation. They have been taught that they should look to themselves and their works as the primary proof of their salvation. And I hope that none of you think along these lines. If you've been hanging out with us in Galatians, I would be shocked if you did, because if there's one thing we've learned through this study is that we can do nothing to secure our salvation and we are not the proof of our own salvation. Jesus is, right? And it's not about you. It's not about you. I want to, in closing, just assure you of something again. If you are trusting in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross, your salvation is eternally secure. Because He is sovereign, there is none stronger, He's not going anywhere. He is eternal, and because He is eternal, your salvation is eternal. Because He is strong, your salvation is strong, right? And because He's not going anywhere, neither are you, neither of His promises–not going anywhere so if anybody asks you, or do you believe in eternal security? I believe that my salvation is secure eternally. Yes, absolutely. Now, some of these other phrases, I don't have so, I'm not a big fan because I don't want any phrase to close me down from what God’s Word has to say on a subject. The minute I stop hearing the warnings that are written for believers, I've done myself a grave disservice and we need to hear those things. But we also need to be careful not to be afraid because our salvation is in Christ and kept in Him, amen.