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Religion Made Simple: Galatians 5:1-6

Religion Made Simple: Faith


Galatians 5:1–6 (ESV)
1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

We are kicking off a 4-week series called Religion Made Simple. In this series we will see that the core of the Christian Faith is both simple and powerful when we live it out. In the book of Galatians, Paul clearly identified the core of our Faith when he wrote,

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”—Galatians 5:6

Faith expressed in love is the core of the Christian faith, and here’s what it means:

Everything works better when the people who have believed in Jesus for eternal life love like Jesus in this life.

Religion can get complicated. In fact, complicated Christianity is what causes many people to walk away from Christ. People do this because complicated religion tends to be somewhat useless particularly at those moments when we most need our religion to work.

If the core of the Christian Faith is as simple as faith expressed in love, then how do we make it so complicated that it doesn’t work when we most need it? If you’ve observed other humans or maybe even yourself, you may have seen that we are really good at mixing stuff that doesn’t go together.

We do it with our finances. You decide to save money, and you make great progress, but then some shiny object gets your attention and you raid your savings account to buy it. You mixed spending with saving and your money’s gone.

We do it with our health. You work out, watch what you eat, drink more water, you’re disciplined, but then you binge eat through the winter and gain it all back. You mixed discipline with indiscipline and you’ve made no progress.

We do it in our relationships. You pay close attention to who you hang with because you know that in five years you’ll be just like them, but then you start dating a guy or girl that you KNOW you shouldn’t be with because you so long for intimacy. You mixed emotional pain with relational prudence and it takes you down a relational black hole.

We do it in our parenting. You know your kids will likely grow up to be like you, so you pay close attention to your relationship with your spouse, because you want your kids to see what it means for a husband and wife to love each other, but then you get entangled in an affair, even if it’s just emotional because he looked your way or she caught your eye. You mixed selfless love with selfish desire.

Mixing things that don’t go together never turns out well because whatever we mix distorts and diminishes what matters most. In fact, It’s possible to distort anything to the point that it becomes something else!

This can also happen to our religion as well. When we add stuff to the simple core of faith expressed in love it distorts it so that it becomes something else. Christ followers have tended to mix stuff into the core of the Faith from the very beginning. One of the first places it happened was among the churches in the province of Galatia (which today is modern Turkey). The Apostle Paul was so opposed to mixing other things to the core of the Faith that he fired off a letter to the Galatian churches to try to help them understand what was at stake if they distorted the gospel of grace to the point that it became something else. Look at how he said it:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”—Galatians 1:6-7

Who was Paul talking about that were distorting the Faith?

When Paul would travel to a city to preach the gospel, if there were a Jewish synagogue in that city he would first preach there. Because he preached that God’s love need not be earned and can never be lost, his message was incredibly liberating good news! Usually a good number of Gentile men, known as God-fearers would go over to Paul, along with some Jews from the synagogue, and they would form the church in that city. But often a group Jewish Christians, headquartered out of Jerusalem, known as Judaizers would follow behind him and teach that Paul’s emphasis on grace was dangerous.

The Judaizers would try to persuade the new believers to mix the Law of Moses to the gospel to temper Paul’s message of grace. If you bought into the Judaizer’s teaching circumcision was the initiation rite that showed you were agreeing to mix Moses with Jesus. Paul made it absolutely clear that this was a distortion of the Christian Faith.

He did this when he emphasized that they were turning to a different gospel. The word different could also be translated as the word another. There were two Greek adjectives that conveyed the idea of the English word another. αλλος referred to another of the same kind. The other adjective was ετερος but it referred to another of a different kind. Paul said the gospel of the Judaizers was a ετερος gospel by which he meant something altogether different than the gospel Jesus gave and he preached.

Paul’s point was that mixing Moses with Jesus fundamentally changed the nature of the Christian Faith so that it was actually no longer Christian nor based on Faith. Paul thought it so important that they and we not mix anything to the core of the Faith that he said:

“If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received let him be accursed.”—Galatians 1:9

Paul was mad! It’s as if he were screaming at the top of his lungs THIS ISTHE SINGLE GREATEST MISTAKE YOU CAN POSSIBLY MAKE. Do not mix anything to the core! It will distort it so that instead of being the Faith Jesus delivered, it will become the Religion man makes.

How did Paul know it wouldn’t work?

In his expositional work on the book of Galatians titled Bewitched: The Rise of Neo-Galatianism, Dr. Dave Anderson, the founding pastor of this church, identifies the fact that humans needs two things. We all need security and significance. (p. 163) Security is our need for love. Significance is our need for meaning. The gospel of grace that Jesus offered and that Paul preached brilliantly provides for both. Because in the gospel of grace I discover that God’s love cannot be earned and never lost!
However, when grace is diminished through distortion we have to PERFORM to feel secure, and PERFORM to feel significant. We’ve all experienced this even if you haven’t thought about it.

Let me give you a few common examples.

If you kill it at work you yourself raise the bar so that now everyone always expects you will kill it. Now you can’t let ‘em down, because if you do it’ll make you look bad. Now you have to perform to feel good about yourself. The need to perform adds pressure!

If you score 30 points in the game on Tuesday night, you feel like you at least have to score 20 on Friday night because everyone on the team sees you as a scorer. If you don’t live up to that you will have failed to play your part and you’ll let the team down. The need to perform adds pressure!

If there is someone you respect like your father, or your mentor, or some other significant person in your life, the last thing you want to do is let them down by failing to meet their expectations. The need to perform adds pressure!

In truth, if you are a performer, the need to meet your own expectations creates the greatest pressure you feel.

When the gospel of grace is distorted by what we mix in it, it’s not enough to express our faith with love. We have to prove it with our performance. We have to be at every service, get involved in all kinds of extracurricular activities, give more than we really want to, try to live a perfect life, evangelize someone every week, never think a less than stellar thought, etc.

This is exactly what Paul told the Galatians would happen. Look what he wrote.

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”—Galatians 5:1

“Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.”—Galatians 5:2

“I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.”—Galatians 5:3

The nature of the law was that if you messed cup at one point you were guilty of all. It’s guaranteed, if you mix Moses with Jesus you will fail. This brand of religion won’t work. You’ll end up hating your own self-imposed religious pressure. You’ll either cheat or walk away. This is why Paul concluded this section as we said in the beginning of this talk,

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”—Galatians 5:6

Not twenty things - only one thing matters, faith expressed in love! This is religion made simple. And it will work!

So here’s what I’m asking you to do today.
First, think about what you’ve mixed to the core of the Faith that has made practicing it burdensome and stressful for you.

Second, I want you to recall an act of love that has powerfully effected you, a time when love changed your life.

Faith expressed in love is the simple core of the Christian Religion. And it matters because everywhere you turn people in The Woodlands are desperate for love and meaning? You go to work with them, to school with them, they live across the street from you. They stand behind and in front of you in every check out line. Everything works better when the people who have believed in Jesus for eternal life love like Jesus in this life.


Discussion Questions:

  1. What are some of the common ways we complicate Christianity?
  2. Can you think of a few uncommon was that might be unique to you?
  3. How does complicated faith undermine its power?
  4. Can you remember the two things we all need? (Security and Significance)
  5. Security is our need for ____?
  6. Significance is our need for _____?
  7. What are some of the wrong ways we chase after these things?
  8. How is faith expressed in love more effective than improving our performance?
  9. How is a faith-life based on performance like mixing vegetables with spaghetti?
  10. How is a faith-life based on love different?
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