Don’t become Religious 2  

by Darryl Manning                   7/1/01

 

INTRO:  The greatest temptation to a Christian is to become religious. Last week we looked at how can turn worship into a form and leave God completely out.

Today we will see how Christians are tempted to turn from the grace of God that leads to freedom and turn to legalism that leads to condemnation and defeat. In the New Testament, the book of Galatians is written to people who were being tempted by religious people to turn back to legalism and religion.

            Legalism and condemnation was stealing the joy of the Galations. In Gal. 4: St. Paul wrote: ¹⁵What has happened to all your joy? St. Paul wrote to bring them back to the true gospel and the joy of the relationship they had in Jesus.

 

Gal. 1: ⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—⁷which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

• You can become subverted to a “different gospel”

 

Gal. 2: ¹¹When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. ¹²Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

• Even Peter and Barnabas fell to this subversion and were rebuked
• The fear of men brings us into the bondage of legalistic religion.

¹⁴When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

·         Legalistic religion is not freedom but is a “forced” existence. So called “teachers” put burdens on men they cannot even bear.

¹⁵“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

·         The law has no provision for justifying us – it only condemns us.

• Only faith in Jesus can justify us.

¹⁷“If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!

• Christian liberty does not mean that Jesus approves of sin in our lives. It means that His forgiveness of our sin gives us the power to overcome.

¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

• Don’t rebuild a religion. – you don’t want to go back to bondage.
• The law killed you when it killed Christ.
• Now you are a new creation with Christ living in you.
• Now you have the power to live for God
• Don’t set aside the grace of God and go back to religion, rules and condemnation

 

Gal. 3: ¹You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ²I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? ³Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? … ⁵Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

• Turning back to religion is foolish. Someone must be pushing you back.
• Goal of eternal life and joy in this life cannot come through our effort but only through the spirit.

 

Gal. 4: ⁹But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? ¹⁰You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! ¹¹I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

 

Gal. 5: ¹It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

²Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

• Jesus came to set us free – don’t go back to slavery
• If you give in to living by legalism – Christ is no value to you
• If you give in to even one law – you become obligated to the whole law
• If you go back to the law – you have fallen from grace and alienated yourself from Christ.

REJOICE IN YOUR FREEDOM – LET CHRIST LIVE IN YOU!