Good morning to everyone. Thank you, Mark, for leading us again. Good to see you all here this morning. Sun's shining. That's nice. Good for morale. I was thinking we're really getting you in shape for Thanksgiving next week because we had Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. Now we're in leftovers this weekend, so you'll be all practiced up for next week.

We're continuing our study this morning in the book of Galatians in chapter 5, and we began to study this chapter last time in the first several verses. Paul's called to stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. In our text today, I want to highlight verse 7. Paul says, “You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?”

The word translated hindered here is only used in this verse in the Bible, and it means literally to beat back or to check. It makes me think of a hockey game. We went skating on Wednesday, and apparently I'm too old for that now. But it reminds me of the hockey days. You can imagine a forward flying down along the boards with the puck and skating gracefully towards the goal hoping to score, and out of nowhere comes the defenseman racing at just the right angle and hammers that guy with a heavy check against the boards and lays him out, stopping his progress and ending his hope of success.

Well, we could picture a runner in the same way, running the race of his life, speeding along, doing well, looking to the finish line. And then he steps on a stone, stumbles, and pulls his hamstring. He's unable to continue. He's hobbling along trying to make it to the tape. Paul's word picture here is impressive, but I want you to notice a very important detail, and that is that he is writing to believers.

You might say, well, yeah, out to the churches in Galatia. That's how the letter starts, but this is a very important point that I think we often miss. The issue in Galatia was a false gospel. The legalistic Jews came in preaching a false message, and what was it that they were preaching? In Acts 15:5, it says, "Some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” These Judaizers were preaching the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, faith in Him for salvation, but they were also teaching that a man must keep the law of Moses in order to be saved.

The Galatian heresy exists in our mainline Christian denominations today, and we've seen Paul meet this heresy head-on in Galatians 1:6. He said, "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another; it’s not good news, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ." But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we've said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

Well, did you notice in the words of verse 7 in chapter 1, it says, “There are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” They want to trouble you, stir you all up, agitate you, bring confusion by perverting the gospel of Christ. “You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” Paul is greatly concerned about this false teaching. He wants to end it in the churches, and he meets it head-on with strong, clear words as we've seen again and again throughout this epistle. Nowhere more so than in our text today, in verse 12, where he says, "I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off." 

Paul says if circumcision is so great, why don't they just do a little more comprehensive job there? We'll see in Philippians 3, he calls them the mutilation, and Paul taught us in verse 3 of Galatians 5 that circumcision represents the whole law. Galatians 5:3, "I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. The whole law, the law covenant.” If you choose the law as a way to life and justification or as a way of life and sanctification, then you place yourself under the law, and you are a debtor to keep the whole law. Circumcision represents the whole law, and if a man chooses that path, he's in debt to keep it perfectly.

So what I want you to see in our study this morning is that Paul's reason for writing this letter to believers in the churches of Galatia is because he is concerned about the implications of this false message on the believers' understanding of the Christian life. They were running well. They were obeying the truth, and then someone came in with a false gospel, a false teaching of law keeping for salvation, and this teaching troubled, it hindered the believers from running well, from bearing fruit.

Remember what they taught and what the works righteous man-centered so-called Christian denominations teach today is a progressive justification. I like that term, so I want you to think about that. Progressive justification. If you believe in faith plus works, grace plus or by religious ritual or sacrament, then you can never know if you are saved. When we talk about salvation biblically, we think of justification, sanctification, and glorification, but in a church where they teach faith in Jesus plus works, they do not believe in justification at a point in time by grace through faith. They believe in a progressive justification whereby you can never have assurance, never know that you are saved.

When I grew up in religion, we were warned clearly and severely about the sin of presumption. That is, that you could know that you are saved and that you could affirm that truth. Because in religion, you are always, all your lifetime, working toward your salvation by ritual, by good works, by giving, by penance. So what we see in Paul's letter here is that the believers were taken captive by this false teaching, this false gospel, and it was hindering how they viewed the Christian life. It was perverting their understanding of sanctification by grace through faith.

Look back at chapter 2 with me, at verse 18. The context here in 2:18 is the issue with Peter and Barnabas, you'll remember, and how when the legalists came, they withdrew themselves from the brethren, from the Gentiles; they’d no longer eat in fellowship with them. The false teaching impacted how they lived their Christian life. And Paul says they were not straightforward about the gospel. 

That's quite a statement, isn't it? That when they withdrew themselves, they wouldn't fellowship with the Gentiles because of the legalists. Paul called that not being straightforward about the gospel. They were building the law again for their Christian living. Look at what Paul says here in verse 18. "For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God." Stop and take that in for a minute. Let that soak in. 

I through the law, what law was that? Romans 7, “Thou shalt not covet,” right? It's what Paul said. I through the law died to the law. Why? For the express purpose that I might live to God. We see that same teaching in Romans 7:1-6. 

So Paul, if the Christian is not to live by the law, then how do you live? He continues in verse 20. "I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."

If righteousness, holy living in the Christian life, Paul says the life that I now live, if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain. Look at the next words in chapter 3. "Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?" That's just what he says in our text this morning. "Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified." This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

Verse 3 is the issue and it captures Paul's intent in this epistle. Having begun in the Spirit, justification by grace through faith, are you now being made perfect? That's sanctification, made mature, complete, made perfect by the flesh. I'm belaboring the point in this long introduction, but it's vital for our understanding. 

I've heard so many teachers relegate this entire book to justification and the ceremonial and civil law. But this interpretation misses the whole point of Paul's writing. The issue was that the false gospel was having an impact on the believers' understanding of the Christian life. They were turning back to the law as a rule of life, and this was hindering them in their walk and their fruit and their service to one another through love. 

The law, circumcision, he says, avails nothing but faith working through love. That's the message here. Faith working through love. Let's dig into our text here this morning and see Paul make this point clear once again. Galatians 5:1. We're going to pick up these verses we preached on last week. 

Verse 1: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ you who attempt to be justified by law. You have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love.

"You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will have no other mind but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is. And I brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off. For you brethren have been called to liberty. Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another."

I've given you five points on your outline. First, stand fast. Second, hamstrung by false teaching. Third, obeying the truth. Fourth, the mutilation. And fifth, service through love.

Well, first we see in our text the main exhortation to us, which is stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. We covered this in depth last time, but just a brief review. What does it mean that Christ has made us free? I want to look at Romans 5:20-21 to start. 

Romans 5:20-21 Paul writes, “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. So that, as sin reigned in death, even so, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Paul just spent verses 12 to 19 contrasting the man in Adam, particularly the one sin of the man Adam in the garden and its impact on all men. He contrasted that with the one righteous act of Christ on the cross and its impact on those who believe. Verses 20 to 21 are his conclusion. The law came to increase sin, to show us our sin, to cause sin to abound in our lives. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. 

Now, here's the key for understanding that just as sin reigned in death in Adam, do y'all understand that? Y'all get that, right? You were in Adam. You know what it was like to be in Adam. You know people in Adam. You see the world, man and Adam. Sin reigns in death, he says. But then he says, “Even so,” in the same way, just like that, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That grace might reign in our lives to the extent that sin reigns in the life. Even more so, grace superabounding in our lives. So Paul's point here is that in Christ, grace reigns unto life just as sin reigned in Adam unto death. Now in 6:1 he says, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" And this is the whole basis for the new life in Christ. We died, and Paul goes on to explain our union to Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. He vividly describes that in verse 6. 

He says, “Knowing this, that our old man, that's that man in Adam, was crucified with him, that the body of sin, that's this physical body controlled by indwelling sin, might be done away with, or rendered powerless, in order that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” What does it mean that Christ has made us free? It means that through our death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus, we were made new, we were born again, we were regenerated, so that we died to sin, that we died to the law, Romans 7, we died to the fear of death, Romans 6:10, Hebrews 2. These are the very things that held the man in Adam in bondage, as Romans 5 to 8 explains so clearly.

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Paul says in Romans 7 that we died to the law in order that we might live to God, that we might bear fruit unto holiness. What does it mean that Christ has made us free? It means that we no longer live by the letter but by the Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit that imparts strength to our inner man as we walk by the Spirit by faith as the Word of Christ dwells in us richly as He lives His life in and through us by faith. 

The just shall live by faith. Paul summarized this so beautifully in that verse we read earlier, “I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” Freedom in Christ is because of our death with Him and because of His life in us, and our freedom is now to obey Him, to live for Him, to bring glory to God in all that we do. This is not by the law, not by the letter, not by the ministry of death and condemnation that Paul calls the law engraved on stones, but rather by the Spirit.

In the life of the believer neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, Paul says, but faith working through love. This is the way. The just shall live by faith. How do we stand fast in the freedom by which Christ has made us free? We live by the means that God has prescribed so clearly in His Word. We live by faith. We live by the power of the Spirit looking unto Jesus as we run this race, abiding in Him by faith, and it is God who is able. It's not me. It is God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever ask or think. 

Our sufficiency, as Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 3, is not from ourselves but our sufficiency is from God by faith. As we see, listen, the supernatural fruit of the Spirit, love, worked out in our lives. Love for God and love for men for His glory. Paul says in our text, “You ran well.” The believers there were living this life of fruit and holiness, bringing glory to God and men to Christ, but then something happened. False teaching came in, a lie, a different gospel, a different Jesus came to Galatia through the preaching of the legalistic Jews.

The impact was twofold and it struck at the very purposes for which God has us here in this world. They were taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies after the wisdom of men and not according to Christ. They were checked into the boards, hamstrung by confusion in life by the law. Look at verse 7 in our text, “You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” 

But I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will have no other mind. But he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is. And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off. The cross is a stumbling block; the cross is an offense. Why? Because if you read that passage in 1st Corinthians, at the end of that, especially in 2:1 to 5, he says what? That we would have no confidence in the flesh. That God would get all the glory.

Not many wise, not many noble, you know that passage. Foolishness to the world, but to us the power of God in salvation. There are those today within the umbrella of Christianity who teach that what the Judaizers taught. They teach justification by grace through faith, plus works, plus law keeping. This is a false gospel. It leads men to hell. This was a problem for the witness in Galatia. What message would they preach to the lost for salvation, for justification?

And Paul makes clear that this is not just a little different doctrine. It's not just that they're a little off and they're brothers and sisters in Christ who see things a little differently. This is a false gospel. It should be accursed and those who preach it are anathema. So the false gospel was a problem for evangelism, for reaching the lost, for sure. But this is not the heart of the epistle. 

The second issue was the impact that this confusion was having on the believers. These teachers were placing a yoke of bondage on the neck of the disciples, placing law on them, the law of Moses as a rule of life, an aid to holiness and salvation, Christian living. And Paul gave us this illustration that we looked at a couple weeks ago back in chapter 4 of the two women giving birth to the two children. Hagar is the law covenant, is Sinai, he says, and is in bondage. 

But Sarah had the child of promise by the supernatural work of God. Listen now, the problem was that Sarah attempted by natural human means, by the works of the flesh, to accomplish the promise and will of God. You remember they were getting old and had been a long time since promise and she was going to help God out, and she'd get Abraham to go in there with Hagar and have a son. She doubted and she attempted to accomplish the will of God by the works of the flesh. And as a result, Hagar had Ishmael, but Hagar is Sinai, is the law covenant, and we are children of promise, Paul says. 

How? How are we children of promise? By the supernatural work and grace of God, as He promised, He provided the promised child when it was impossible, humanly speaking. Remember we looked at Romans 4? So in this illustration, Paul says that Hagar represents the law covenant, the law’s way of life, accomplishing the will of God through the works of the flesh. But Sarah represents the supernatural life of God working in and through us by grace through faith, the new covenant. And what was Paul's instruction? Cast out the bondwoman. Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. 

So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. The law is not the way to life and justification, and it's not the way of life and sanctification. Salvation all the way through is by grace through faith, and we are now free in Christ and live not by the letter but by the Spirit. The Judaizers were troubling the believers in Galatia, so much so that they had begun in the Spirit, were true believers who had been running well by grace through faith, but now they were going back to the law of Moses as a way of living and thus were falling down. They were hamstrung by this unbiblical way of living and thus no longer bearing the fruit of the Spirit, epitomized in love. 

They'd been obeying the truth, but now they were seeking another way to righteousness, through the flesh, through law-keeping. “You ran well, who hindered you from obeying the truth?” What does it mean to obey the truth? I think the clearest passage we have is in Romans 6:17, where he says, “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” 

We were slaves of sin, but we obeyed from the heart, that is, we believed, we trusted. And what did we believe? That form of doctrine to which you were delivered. The word delivered speaks of being poured into a mold; it speaks of the new creation. The doctrine we obeyed believed the mold we were poured into was the gospel. We obeyed the truth, we believed the gospel, and the believers in Galatia did the same thing, and they were living by faith, trusting in the grace of God. They were running well, but they were now obeying a different gospel, one of law and works, because of false teaching.

Do you think the truth matters? Do you think the truth of truth matters? Paul warns the church in Philippi about this in chapter 3 as well. Look at Philippians chapter 3, and he highlights the life of faith in that great passage as well. Philippians 3:1, I want you to think about how serious Paul was about this, with what he wrote in Galatians 1 and Galatians 5 and now in Philippians 3. 

Verse 2, he says, "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation." He's talking specifically about these legalistic Jews. "For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so. Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law, a Pharisee. 

Concerning zeal, persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. That's what it's about, isn't it? Like Paul says in Thessalonians, you turn from idols to serve the living God. Paul turned from his self-righteous religion to Christ. "I've counted it all loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him." 

Notice this, "not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know Him." See, we move from justification to sanctification there. "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection in my life." Paul says in Ephesians 1:19, the very power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in you in your life. "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." 

Beware of the mutilation. It's the same thing that Paul warns of in our text, salvation by surgery. And he says graphically, if circumcision is so great, why not remove it all? In Philippians, he refers to this as the mutilation. And what he is attacking is the law as a way of righteousness for justification or sanctification. He says count all that works righteousness, that law-keeping, that religious ritual and heritage, as dung is the word he uses. And be found in Him, not having righteousness through the law but by faith in Jesus, His righteousness lived out through my life by faith. 

Beware of the mutilation of works righteous religion and a life by the law. Well next in our text we see the contrast to this kind of thinking. The contrast is the life of service through love by the Spirit. 

Verse 13: "For you brethren have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh but through love serve one another." For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself; but if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another." 

You have been called to liberty. Stand fast in the freedom by which Christ has made you free. Now Paul reiterates here as he does in Romans 6 that licentiousness is a misunderstanding of the grace of God, of salvation in Jesus Christ. Do not use liberty as a license for the flesh. In other words, how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? This is a common accusation that we hear when we preach the gospel, and that Paul obviously heard as well. 

What are you saying, Paul, that when my sin abounds, grace super abounds? Doesn't that mean that I can sin all I want? And Paul's answer is so clear: Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The strongest negative in the Greek, may it never be, perish the thought. And his answer is, “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” You do not understand salvation in Christ. You do not understand that we died, that we were radically transformed, recreated. We died, were buried with Jesus, and raised to newness of life.

Adrian Rogers used to say, "Yes, I sin all I want. In fact, I sin more than I want." He said, "If you want to sin, then you have to get your want fixed." And my friends, that's what happened in salvation. We got our want fixed, and through the new birth we have a new and powerful desire to live a holy life, bringing glory to God. We cannot continue in sin as we did in Adam because we are no longer who we were in Adam.

So Paul reminds them, do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but rather live out who you are and through love serve one another. God has provided to us in Christ all things that pertain to life and godliness. We lack nothing. We have the basis for our life of agape love in the doctrine of regeneration, as we've discussed. God has freed us from the controlling power of sin, from the law which we were held by, from the fear of death, and He's raised us new men to new life. This is the why we can live a new life. This is the truth basis for our life in Christ.

Now the question is, what is God's prescribed means to accomplish this holiness in our lives? Isn't that the question? How does God intend to produce this holiness through me? I need to understand that. We want more than anything to live a holy life in consistency with who we are so we might bear fruit for the glory of God. This is our deep-down heart's desire because God has poured His love out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 

What do you want more in this world than to lead men to Christ? What do you want more in this world than to love your wife, to raise your children in the Lord? What do you want more in this world than to bring glory to God? I want to live for Him, the One who died for me. And I know you do too, my brother, my sister in Christ, and my question, the question of the book of Galatians and the whole of the New Testament is how? What is God's way to holiness? 

And Paul tells us again and again and again, as do the other New Testament writers, that it is not by the law, but by the Spirit. Look down to Galatians 5:16, he says, "I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 

The flesh here is the body controlled by indwelling sin, just like in Romans 6:6. It is possible for us as believers to forget who we are, to act contrary to who we are. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, to live like mere men. Notice he does not say we are mere men. In fact, his exhortation in chapter 6 of that epistle is to quit living like the world who you once were. In 1 Corinthians 6:11, he says, "Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." 

The battle of the Christian life is not one against sin, per se. It's not a battle to put off the old man or to put on the new. It is a battle of the mind, to believe God, to know His Word, and to trust what He says is true, and to trust Him by His power to work out His will. He says in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4, aorist tense, one time in the past, we have put off the old man, and we have put on the new man. It's like asking Jesus to be present with us here today. I don't have to ask Jesus to be present with me here today. Why? Because He said, "I'll never leave you or forsake you; I live in you." I can thank Him, right? Thank you, Jesus, that you're present with me today.

But in both of those passages, Colossians 3, Ephesians 4, he says present tense, continuous action that we are being renewed in the spirit of our minds. In Romans 12, Paul says we are to be being transformed by the renewing of our mind by the Word of God. That word transform means to have our outward actions, our living, come into consistency with who we are inwardly, and what a beautiful definition of biblical sanctification.

The message we see at the heart of this epistle we're studying is that this Christ life is a supernatural life, by His grace, through faith. The fruit of love is a supernatural fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22. The fruit of the Spirit is what? Love. Right? The fruit of the Spirit is love. The law brings only wrath, death, condemnation. 

So the question is, what is the means of God for producing the fruit of holiness in our life? A holy life will be in consistency with the law of God. Why? Because we are a representation of His character and nature, and we're being made conformed in the likeness of Christ. But the law is not a helper in this life of fruit; it's not a means unto holiness. Rather the life of love, the fulfillment of the law, is based in the regenerative work of God and in the life of Christ in us through faith by the power of the Spirit.

We see this in Romans 8. Turn over to Romans 8:2, getting close to the end here. Romans 8:2, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." 

The flesh, as we have seen in so many passages, is tied to the law, even in the illustration of Hagar in the law of the covenant, or in Romans 7. What the law could not do, why? In that it was weak in the flesh. That's the problem, sin, indwelling sin, that's the problem. But what the law couldn't do, God did. What did God do? He sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin He condemned sin in the flesh, and we died with Him.

This is the work of regeneration; He released us from sin and law and death and raised us to a new life of righteousness, imparting His very life to us and coming to make His home in us. You know, Jesus said that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in the believer. Why did He come and make His home in us? Why did He release us from the power of sin? That the righteous requirement of the law... What's that? Romans 13 says love. Romans 13 says love. That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 

The supernatural power that produces the fruit of love in our lives is the Spirit of God living in us. And this life for the just, for those who have been justified, is a life of faith, living in the grace of God by faith. Stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. Do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Know the Word of God and what He says to be true. Continually renew your mind to that.

You ever get confused in life, you're kind of going along, maybe you've got a problem or a situation or someone comes to you and they have a problem and, man, this really seems like it should be this way, and you get a little confused in your thinking, and you kind of get a little stomachache about it, and you say, "I'm going to go back to the Word of God." I'm going to go back to the Word of God. And you study the Word of God on an issue and it's abundantly clear. Clear as a bell. And you think, man, this is what God says, right? 

So now what am I going to do with all those emotions and that trouble and those circumstances? You see, I'm going to go to the Word of God and renew my mind to His truth and choose to believe Him, reckon what He says to be so. And then I'm going to trust Him by His power as I abide in Christ, as I walk in the Spirit to work out His will in my life. It's not passive. It's discipline, man. You better be in the Word. You better know the Word. You better be in fellowship. And you better choose to believe what He says is true in spite of all the wisdom of the world and your wisdom, your feelings and everything else that gets in the way. It's a battle. 

The struggle is real, as Doug Foley would say, right? But we better fight at the right point. Know the Word of God, what He says to be true. Reckon it to be so. Believe Him and yield to His life and power in us to present our members as weapons of righteousness. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God. For pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing what? Every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 

The command of the new covenant is this, believe Jesus and love one another. The law veils nothing when it comes to righteous living, but faith working through love. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Remember the words of Paul, “I through the law died to the law in order that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” 

Run well, my brothers and sisters, run well by looking unto Jesus. This is the key to the Christian life. Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful for the gospel, thankful for Your plan of salvation, thankful for Your grace and mercy and Your wisdom and power that brought it all to pass, Lord, and thank You that You, through the cross, are able to remain just, punishing all sin on Christ and also the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Help us to live for You, help us to believe what You say is true in Your Word, to live in light of who we are in Christ by Your power, by Your grace. Help us to look to You, to need You every day, to believe You, and help us to glorify You in all that we do. In Jesus' name, amen.