Sermon Tone Analysis

*Intro*

We have been working through our church’s statement of faith, i.e. our core values or you could even say, the non-negotiable tenets of our faith.

Today we will be looking at #6:

/That humans are saved by grace through faith in Christ in response to the Gospel preached, or otherwise presented, in the power of the Holy Spirit, through whom ransomed sinners became the sons of God and heirs of eternal life./

We started with /Bibliology/, the doctrine of the Word of God and moved into /Theology/, the study of God looking at the Trinity and some of God’s attributes.

After that we looked at the doctrine of sin, or /Hamartiology/, in the Fall of man in Genesis 3.

This brought us to /Christology/, where we spent the last few weeks studying Jesus Christ’s humanity, deity, crucifixion and resurrection.

Today we will look a little bit closer at /Soteriology/, or salvation.

Steve introduced this topic in Romans a couple of weeks ago.

Again, like all of these topics, we will look at just one facet of the diamond with this message.

What is the hardest part of salvation?

In my opinion, I think the hardest part is to truly believe that Jesus’ work on the cross is completely finished.

It is hard to fathom as Tullian Tchividjian says, that God’s math equation for salvation is Jesus nothing = everything and everything – Jesus=nothing.[1]

If I truly believed this, why do I still act like I am trying to earn my way to Heaven?

Let me ask us some heart questions.

How do you react if you /don’t/ do the things you feel you should do or need to be doing in order to be a “good Christian”?

Do you feel condemned?

Do you feel like a failure in God’s eyes?

Are you driven to redouble your efforts in order to do better “next time”?

Do you tend to evaluate your spirituality by how regularly you are keeping up with or measuring up to certain standards?

Do you feel God loves you more when you perform certain Christian practices?

Do you seem to feel a disheartening sense of disapproval from Him when you don’t?[2]

If you feel like I am talking about you and you are saying a loud “yes!” in your heart right now, God’s Word is for you today.

Perhaps the gospel, like the candy that gets stuck in the vending machine, has not completely dropped from your head to your heart.

In the next couple of weeks, hopefully the Lord can shake us a bit and let that gospel truth fall a little bit more.

Paul is writing to a group of churches in modern day Turkey, Galatia back then.

Paul had preached the gospel in those churches.

However, he was saddened to find out that that certain teachers called the Judaizers were in these churches teaching them that what Jesus did on the cross was not enough.

They needed a ritual, namely circumcision, for God to truly accept them.

So these teachers changed God’s math equation.

It was now Jesus ritual of circumcision= salvation.

And some even started thinking that they were more spiritual because they had been circumcised.

And now the gospel was no longer, “Jesus did,” but now it was “you do.”

You do and God will accept you.

For Paul, this teaching was a slap in the face of Jesus Christ.

That is why Galatians is the only epistle where unlike typical Pauline fashion, we do not get much of a greeting or a prayer.

This idea that Jesus’ work was not sufficient to save and keep believers in salvation bothered Paul so much he wastes no time getting to the point.

In the coming weeks, we will talk about how to walk in the fact that Jesus’ work was accomplished, but today let’s look at the dangers of adding to Christ’s work and the delight of accepting it.

For the Galatians, they had perverted the true gospel by applying it in extremes.

Paul will tell them don’t add to it, but don’t cheapen it either by being careless in your walk either.

What does freedom in Christ look like Paul?

One commentator notes, “Some were using their liberty as a pretext for license, to the gratification of their sinful nature.

Others were “Lone-Ranger” Christians, having forgotten the mandate to bear one another’s burdens.

Still others had fallen into discord and faction, backbiting and self-promotion.”[3]

This is the classic struggle of legalism versus license.

Satan never invents new truth, he perverts old ones, by taking people away from the center of truth to the extremes.

This is how he works since the Garden (Gen 3) because subtle perversions of the truth are difficult to spot as opposed to blatant falsehood.

How can we find freedom in the salvation that Christ has accomplished by His grace?

Let’s start with this: 

*I.

Jesus saves us from slavery for freedom (v.1)*

Galatians 1-2 is Paul’s personal account of why he is a legitimate apostle.

Chapters 3-4 is his doctrinal section of why Jews and Gentiles alike can enjoy complete salvation by faith in Christ alone.

Now in the last two chapters, Paul begins to flesh out how the gospel of grace leads to true freedom and godly living in Christ.

Notice Jesus does not save us from slavery for independence or slavery for slavery.

It is to find freedom in Christ.

Galatians 5:1 is the thesis statement for Galatians 5 and 6. Paul says two things here basically:

/a) //We have been set free/

Here Paul says that when we believe on Jesus Christ for salvation, we are not only freed from something, we are also freed to something.

This freedom is not just an exit from slavery, but an entrance to salvation.

What were we slaves to?

Look over to Gal. 4:3.

We were slaves to the world.

When the world said, “Jump!”

We said, “How high?”

When I hear unbelievers say that they don’t want anybody (especially religious folks) telling them what to do and that they want to be “free,” they do not see that they are deceived.

For when you leave the One you were made for, you become a slave to yourself and everything else whether that is power, possessions or pleasure.

As the Apostle John would say, “the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions” (1 John 2:16).

Also, these former Jewish believers were once slaves to the law.

Supposedly they had close to 615 some laws they had to follow.

They had laws to make sure you kept the law.

It was burdensome.

They could never keep them all perfectly.

As a result, they felt guilty all the time.

How can they please God?

So it was revolutionary when Jesus said, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden!” (Matt.

11:28).

He’s not talking about praying after a long day at work.

He’s talking to good moral religious older brothers (Luke 15) to come to Him, not a system or institution.

Likewise, so many people today do not want to be Christians because they think they will have to read 10 chapters of the Bible a day, pray two hours at least and complete a list of do’s and dont’s.

They don’t want to feel guilt when they try and fail, so they avoid Christianity altogether.

So thinking they can’t do all of that, they say no to Christ.

We will see that actually the opposite is true.

Notice here you didn’t free yourself.

Christ set you free.

He set you free from the guilt of your failed attempts to please God.

He is the Great Liberator.

We have all broken the law of God.

We are sinners.

The law says the one who sins shall die (Eze.

18:4; Rom.

6:23).

We are imprisoned in sin (Gal.

3:22).

So imagine a huge prison full of prisoners chained up.

Jesus stepped in and took the blame as our Substitute and died for our sins.

We take His perfect record and make it ours and He takes our failed record and make it His.

Upon resurrection, He enters the prison block of slaves and fills the dungeon with His light.

He goes and sets us free and calls us to come forth and follow Him in relationship with Him.

We have been set free! Then he says:

/b) //We need to stay free/

Notice the command here to stand firm and not to submit again.

The command comes after the fact.