Grace
leads to freedom.
Legalism
leads to slavery.
Grace
leads to truth.
Legalism
leads to lies.
Paul
discusses truth and lies, freedom and slavery. All of these topics revolve
around focusing on grace over the law.
In
Galatians 4:7 Paul tells the Galatian Christians that they were running a good
race. Then he asks a question, “Who cut you off and kept you from obeying the
truth?”
The
Galatians had received the Gospel with great joy. They were made free by the
truth that Paul had taught them and they were following Jesus. Some people had
come and intimidated them into abandoning the grace that brought them into
relationship with Jesus and into trying to follow the law.
In
Galatians 6:8 Paul says that this kind of persuasion does not come from the One
who calls you.
Paul
is saying that what they had been told to get them to abandon grace and turn to
the law was not from Jesus.
God’s
Word says that salvation and everything else connected with a relationship with
God is based in grace. Anything not based in grace is not from Jesus.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls
is based solely in the grace given to us by Jesus.
Galatians
5:9
A
little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.
In
Matthew 16:6 Jesus warns His disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees. Jesus
meant that the Pharisees had a false view of God and what it meant to follow
God. The disciples were to stay away from what the Pharisees were teaching.
Paul is saying the same thing to the Galatian Christians here.
Galatians
5:10
I
am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is
throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be.
Paul
here expresses his confidence in the Galatian Christians. He knows they will
continue to depend on grace and reject depending on the law.
Paul
had taught the Galatians that salvation is by grace, and their faith in Jesus applied
that grace to their lives. He had confidence that truth would not be rejected
and abandoned by the Galatian Christians.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls is
trusting Jesus and trusting Him to work in and through His people.
Galatians
5:11-12
Brothers,
if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that
case the offense of the cross has been abolished.
Paul
asks a question: If he was still teaching that you are made right with God by
observing the law, why was he being persecuted. If Paul was still in agreement
with the old covenant based in the law, then he would not be attacked by the
Jewish religious leaders and others.
Paul
then says that if he was still teaching the law, he would be making the cross
useless.
If
salvation can come through following the law, then the cross is mean and cruel
and useless.
It
is only through the cross that our sins are forgiven.
It
is only through the cross that access to God has been opened.
It
is only through the cross that our salvation has been secured.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls
is centered in the cross.
Galatians
5:12
As
for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate
themselves!
Paul
shows his disdain for those who would come in and spread lies and cause
disunity.
God
puts great emphasis on unity for His people.
Jesus
prays for unity among God’s people in John 17. He indicates that it is one of
the things that marks us as the people of God.
Paul
sees it as so important that he desires a rather extreme measure for those who
would come and try to create disunity.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls
is being one in Jesus with other believers.
Galatians
5:13
You,
my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the
sinful nature; rather, serve one another on love.
Paul
says that grace will lead to freedom. That freedom is not to be used to indulge
our sinful desires. The freedom that Jesus gives us is to be used to serve
others out of love.
In
Matthew 20:28 Jesus said that He did not come to be served, but to serve and
give His life as a ransom for many.
The
model for our freedom to lead us to serve others is Jesus. Jesus was completely
free and He used His freedom to serve others.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls
is serving others in love.
Galatians
5:14
The
entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Paul
says that the core of what Jesus taught was to love your neighbor.
When
Jesus was asked what the greatest command was, He said it was to, “Love the
Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your
strength.”
Jesus
then added that the second command was similar to the first. The second was to
love your neighbor as yourself.
Then
Jesus said the most amazing thing. That all the law and the prophets, the Old
Testament law, was fulfilled if we love God and love others.
Galatians
5:15
If
you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed
by each other.
If
we don’t genuinely love each other with the love that Jesus has for each of us,
then we will wound each other’s souls and eventually destroy each other.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls is
loving God and each other with the love Jesus has for us.
The
truth, Jesus says, will set you free. Lies keep you in slavery. Jesus died to
make you free and Paul encourages us to live in that freedom.
By Grace Freely Raising
the Roof and Removing the Walls,
Joe
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