26 Nov Galatians 11: Three ways to live

Galatians 5:1-15

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. ⁷ You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? ⁸ This persuasion is not from him who calls you. ⁹ A little leaven leavens the whole lump. ¹⁰ I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. ¹¹ But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. ¹² I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! ¹³ For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

Has anyone watched Braveheart? It is one of the must-watch movies. If you have watched it, then you know there is this unforgettable scene in the movie. It is when Mel Gibson, playing William Wallace, painted his face in the colour of the Scotland flag, blue and white, and he raised his hand and shouted, “Freedom.” And all the Scottish army rushed forward to fight for their freedom. Every time I read the first half of Galatians 5, that is the picture that comes to my mind. Paul raises his hand and shouts, “Freedom”, and the Galatians rush forward to fight for their freedom. However, there is a big difference. Wallace was fighting to gain their freedom while Paul tells the Galatians to fight to keep their freedom. There were people who tried to rob the Galatians of their freedom in Christ and Paul would have none of it. In the same way, there are enemies today that try to rob us of our freedom in Christ and Paul is telling us to fight to keep our freedom.

Let’s recap what we’ve learned so far. Throughout Galatians, Paul defended his gospel from the false teachers who tried to distort the gospel. The false teachers were not against the gospel. They believed in the gospel. But they said that faith alone is not enough to save. You must also obey the law and be circumcised, and then you will be saved. You must add obedience to your faith in Jesus. But Paul said that is not the true gospel. Let me put it in a formula for you. True gospel = Jesus + nothing. False gospel = Jesus + something. This is the difference between freedom and slavery. If we don’t get the gospel right, we lose our freedom in Christ. For the past few sermons, we have seen how Paul argued that Christians are free from the condemnation of the law because they are already righteous in Christ.

The question is, what does it mean to be free in Christ? Because when people hear they are free in Christ, some of them think, “Well, if I am free in Christ, if I am free from the condemnation of the law, then I can do whatever I want. I can live however I please. God will love me and accept me no matter what.” At first glance, the gospel seems to remove all incentive to live a holy life, a life pleasing to God. That’s why many Christians feel the need to tone down the gospel. They say, “Yes, the gospel but…” Essentially what they are saying is that we need a balance. They say, “You can’t have too much of the gospel because it will create an imbalance in Christian life. If you keep telling people that they don’t have to do anything to be saved besides trusting Jesus, then it is going to lead to slack living. You must tell them that they must obey the law and do good work as well. You must have the balance between trusting the gospel and obeying the law.” Have you heard this line of reasoning before? There is some truth in it. Back when I was in years 7 to 10, I was a decent student. My grades were good. But in year 11, my parents told me that they wanted me to go to Bible College in Dallas Texas. At first, I hated the thought of going to Dallas. But later I realized that it came with a great benefit. The college did not need my HSC result. I was guaranteed to be accepted. So, do you know what I did for the next two years? I kissed my textbooks and assessments goodbye. Don’t ask me what was my HSC result. But here is Paul’s point throughout Galatians. We cannot have a balance between trusting the gospel and obeying the law. To do so is to distort the gospel. But don’t get Paul wrong. Paul does not say obedience to the law is not important. He talks a lot about the importance of obedience. But Paul says the reason for our obedience means everything. The ‘why’ is everything. So, how does the gospel give us the right ‘why’ to live a holy life?

Let’s look at it together. I have three points for my sermon: the way of legalism; the way of licentiousness; the way of love.

The way of legalism

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

This verse is absolutely important. It is the summary of the whole book of Galatians. Everything about the gospel is about freedom. The reason Jesus came to earth is to set us free. Set us free from what? Note carefully. Paul is not talking about freedom from sin in this passage. Yes, Jesus has set us free from sin, but that’s not Paul’s point. His point is Jesus has set us free from the law. He is not talking about freedom from sin but freedom from the slavery of the law. Jesus has set our conscience free from the guilt and condemnation that the law throws at us. It doesn’t mean that the law is evil. But the main purpose of the law is to show us that we are evil. The law reveals to us our inability to save ourselves and puts us in condemnation. But when we realize we cannot save ourselves, the law points us to the saviour who can save us from our sins, Jesus Christ. And the moment we put our faith in Jesus, we are forgiven of all our sins. We are made right with God at that very second. We don’t have to do anything to earn it. We are justified before God by faith alone. The gospel tells us there is absolutely nothing we can do to save ourselves, but it also tells us that Jesus has completed the work of our salvation. We belong to Jesus forever and nothing in all creations can separate us from his love, not even our future sins. For freedom, Christ has set us free. And this freedom is not something we have to do; it is something that has been done. It is good news. It is a declaration.

But Paul does not stop there. He continues, “stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” This is a command. So, if the first part of the sentence tells us what Christ has done, the second part tells us what we must do in response to what Christ has done. It means that although we cannot lose Christ, we can lose our freedom in him. Our freedom is something we must fight to keep because there are enemies who want to rob us of our freedom. Here is what I know about all of us. We know, but we don’t know. We know we have been freed from the law, and we should be free. But deep inside, we struggle to believe it. We still think that there are things we must do to be accepted by God. Let me put it this way. We are free objectively, but we struggle to be free subjectively. Our freedom is fragile and can easily slip from our grasp. That’s why Paul commands us to stand firm. It means to be alert and to resist attack. Yes, we have been saved by our faith in Christ. But we must continually remember and rejoice in that salvation because there are enemies who want to bring us back into slavery.

There are two enemies of freedom that we can see in our text. The first one is legalism. What is legalism? Legalism is looking to something besides Jesus for acceptance before God. It is the idea that the gospel alone is not enough. We need to add to the gospel. And this is what Paul has been battling in Galatians. Galatians 5:2-4 – 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. Now, remember. Paul is not against circumcision. There is nothing wrong with circumcision in itself. But if circumcision becomes a requirement for salvation, then Paul is strongly against it. For Paul, salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Jesus is enough. Full stop. No addition. John Stott puts it this way. “‘Circumcision’ stands for a religion of human achievement, of what man can do by his own good works; ‘Christ’ stands for a religion of divine achievement, of what God has done through the finished work of Christ. ‘Circumcision’ means law, works and bondage; ‘Christ’ means grace, faith and freedom. Every man must choose. The one impossibility is what the Galatians were attempting, namely to add circumcision to Christ and have both. No. ‘Circumcision’ and ‘Christ’ are mutually exclusive.” The moment we add anything to the perfect work of Christ, it is no longer perfect; it destroys the perfect work of Christ. The gospel is Jesus plus nothing equals everything, Jesus plus something destroys everything.

I’m a big fan of David Beckham. He is my favourite sportsman. Imagine I have a soccer ball with Beckham’s signature on it. I can sell the ball for a lot of money. But when I look at the ball, I realize that his signature is badly faded. So, I take out a marker and carefully trace over his signature with it. Now, what happens to the value of the ball? The ball might worth $1000 before, but the moment I trace that signature with a marker, that signature is no longer Beckham’s. It becomes mine. And the ball’s worth drops to $1 because I can’t bend it like Beckham. If we add just a bit of our work to Christ’ perfect work, if we accept even just one small plus, then Christ will be of no advantage to us. And not only that. If we try to make ourselves right before God by obeying the law, then we are obligated to keep the whole law. Not just part of the law that we like, but all of the law. Our only choice is either we fully trust in Jesus, or we fully obey the law. And as long as we are still relying on Jesus plus something, Paul says that we are severed from Christ. We have fallen away from grace. This is a strong warning. Salvation is either by faith in Christ alone or perfect obedience to the law. There cannot be any mixture between the two. Salvation is either all of Christ or none of Christ. We cannot have 99% Christ and 1% us. It is either 100% Christ or zero.

Galatians 5:7-9 – ⁷ You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? ⁸ This persuasion is not from him who calls you. ⁹ A little leaven leavens the whole lump. This is important. Paul does want us to obey the truth. Obedience does matter. But Paul’s issue is, “Why? Why do you obey?” The Galatians think that by adding circumcision, by adding the law to their list of what to do, they are getting more obedient. But Paul says, “Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” In other words, by adding more obedience, the Galatians were actually not obeying the truth. Here is the implication. Some of you might be asking, “Okay, I get the gospel. But I still don’t understand why adding obedience to the gospel is bad. What is so enslaving about it?” Here is why. Paul is telling us, “Obedience is great. You have to obey God. But if you obey God for the wrong reason, if you obey God to earn salvation, you will be a slave, and you will be burdened.” That means, listen carefully. If we are obeying God for the wrong reason, God sees it as disobedience. Obeying God for the wrong reason is as bad as disobeying God. If we make obedience to the law a requirement for salvation, we are disobeying God. And we will never be sure of our standing before God. That’s enslaving. And Paul says that teaching is not from God who calls us. If it’s not from God, then it must be from Satan. So, whenever we are persuaded to trust ourselves rather than trust in Jesus, remember that those thought does not come from God but from Satan.

Paul then continues to say, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” So, we can’t say, “Who cares if we are made right by faith in Jesus alone or by faith plus obedience? It does not make any difference to my life.” But it does. It makes all the difference. The why of obedience is everything. If we get the why wrong, we get all of Christianity wrong. It’s like cancer that will spread aggressively through the whole body and destroy the body. Let me use my life as an example. God called me into a full-time ministry, and I obeyed. Can we agree that it is a good thing? Obedience to ministry is a God-honouring act. But if I use my ministry to gain acceptance before God, that’s slavery. Why? Because circumstances will kill me. If circumstances threaten my ministry, I’ll be afraid. If circumstances block me from advancing in ministry, I’ll be angry. If I mess up and do something stupid and destroy my ministry, I’ll be depressed. If I do well and my ministry is thriving, I’ll be prideful. So, I am always burdened with guilt, pride, and fear. Ministry success makes me feel like I am somebody. Ministry failure makes me feel like I am nobody. I am enslaved by my ministry. So, obedience is good. But if we obey God for the wrong reason, we return to the yoke of slavery that Christ has set us free from. If we obey God for the wrong reason, we are a slave.

Galatians 5:10-12 – ¹⁰ I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. ¹¹ But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. ¹² I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! Even though the Galatians have been infected with the false teaching of the false teachers, Paul is sure that they will return to the true gospel. Paul’s confidence is not in himself or the Galatians but in God. God will not fail to save those who are his. And Paul says that the one who teaches circumcision will bear the penalty. He will receive condemnation. In fact, Paul’s word is a lot stronger than that. He says he wished that those who teach circumcision would not only cut the skin but somehow the knife slip and cut the thing altogether. This is harsh. I have said lots of harsh things in my sermon, but not this. Paul is taking this matter very seriously. Not because he passionately hates the teacher of circumcision but because he passionately loves the gospel and the Galatians. He would not tolerate any message that makes less of Jesus and rob Christians of their freedom. And that’s why Paul is being persecuted. If Paul had preached circumcision, life would have been much easier for him. But he refused to remove the offense of the gospel. Listen. The gospel is extremely offensive. If you have not been offended by the gospel, you probably don’t understand it. Because the gospel tells you that your works do not count at all. There is absolutely nothing you can do to save yourself. The gospel is very offensive to human pride. Most people would rather think that they can do something to save themselves than admit that they need Christ to save them.

The way of licentiousness

Galatians 5:13-15 – ¹³ For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

The second enemy of freedom is licentiousness. What is licentiousness? It is the opposite of legalism. Licentiousness is the belief that since we are saved by faith in Christ alone, then we can forget about the law and live however we want. It doesn’t matter what we do, God will always love us and welcome us. But Paul also disagrees with this mindset. Paul is saying, “Yes, you are free in Christ. But that freedom is given to you not for you to abuse, not for you to do whatever you want, but for you to serve one another through love.” So here is what we need to know about the gospel. The gospel never promotes an obedience-less life. That is not the gospel. Jesus himself said, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.” So, we need to reject any notion that says, “Since I gave my life to Jesus, it does not matter what I do, I am still going to heaven when I die.” That is not the gospel. The gospel teaches us that if we trust in Jesus, then we should not use our freedom to satisfy our sinful desires. Obedience is not a requirement for salvation, but it is the result of salvation. Gospel truth produces gospel obedience.

Listen. We like to think that freedom means we can do whatever we want. This is how our culture defines freedom. Our culture tells us, “You are free to be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do, and no one can say no to you.” But that is not freedom. That is slavery. True freedom is not the freedom to do whatever want; true freedom is the freedom to want what we were created to do. Take a fish for an example. Let’s say that the fish thinks, “I am free to do whatever I want whenever I want. That is freedom.” One day the fish decides that it is tired of water and wants to exercise its freedom by living in the land. So, the fish jumps out of the water into the land. What will happen to the fish? Is it free? Of course not. The fish will “glepek glepek glepek” and die. The fish is only free when it is in the water. It tells us that true freedom requires the right environment in which one can thrive. Not only that, but true freedom also requires the desire to want to be where one can thrive. As long as the fish thinks that it can only thrive on the land, the fish is not free. But if the fish knows that it can only thrive in the water and it wants to be in the water, that’s freedom. Can you see where I am going with this? For us to experience freedom, we not only need the right environment to thrive but also the desire to be in the right environment. So, get this. The law of God gives us the environment in which we can thrive, but only the gospel gives us the desire to love the law of God.

So, whenever people tell me, “If I believe the gospel, if I believe I am accepted by God no matter what I do, I would have no incentive to live a holy life,” I say, “If when you lose your fear of rejection by God you lose your incentive to live a life pleasing to God, then the only incentive you had for living a holy life was fear. You did not love God. You were afraid of God.” And that is not the gospel. Think about it. The gospel tells us that God is so holy that he requires payment for every sin. And only Jesus’ perfect righteousness can satisfy his demand. But the gospel also tells us that God is so loving that he makes a way for us to be right with him. We can receive Jesus’ perfect righteousness by our faith in Jesus. The gospel therefore neither leads us to a fearful life, since God has graciously accepted us, nor an unholy life, since God who has accepted us is perfectly holy. So, when we abuse our freedom, it means we forget that God is a holy God. Let me put it this way. Christians are free from the law as a way to earn points from God, but Christians are not free from the law as a way to please God. Rather than making us disobey the law, the gospel frees us to love and serve one another. And by doing so, we fulfil the law.

So, the question is, how does the gospel free us to fulfil the law? By removing the very motivation we have for sin. The gospel removes our desire to live however we want. If we use the gospel to encourage us to sin, we do not understand the gospel. For example, lying. The gospel tells us we do not have to fear being rejected by God if we lie. We are free from the penalty of lying. If we think being perfectly honest will make us accepted by God, we will be devastated when we lie. But the gospel assures us that our lie will not condemn us. But does that mean we can lie? Let’s ask a better question. Why did we want to lie in the first place? It is because we are afraid of losing something we think we need if we tell the truth. It might be the acceptance of that person. It might be the success of the business. It might be the comfort of life. And in order to have that something, we lie. But if we get the gospel, then we have no reason to lie. In the gospel, we already have everything we need. God has accepted us, and he is for us. So now we can say, “If I lie, I will get this thing. And if I lie, it does not change my status before God. He still loves me and accepts me. I am free to lie. But why would I lie? I don’t need the acceptance, power, comfort, or control that a lie could give me. I already have them in Jesus.”

Can you see what happened? It is our free acceptance before God that enables us to obey the law. We keep the law out of love, and not duty to earn merit. We do it because we want to, not we have to. That’s freedom. But if we do not get the gospel, if we look to our performance to secure our standing before God, do you know what will happen? We will immediately begin to compare ourselves to the people around us. And we will devour and bite one another. Because we will always feel the need to outperform them in order for God to accept us. Without the gospel, we will live our lives trying to fulfil our own desires and trying to meet our own needs. We will use one another for our personal gain. That’s slavery.

The way of love

Galatians 5:5-6 – 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.

The way of love is the gospel way. Let’s talk about what Biblical hope is first. The way the New Testament used the word hope is very different from ours. Hope in English means uncertainty. If I say, “I hope someone will give me $1 million,” it means I am not sure if it will happen or not. But in the New Testament, the word hope means absolute certainty. That is why Paul says we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. We are still waiting for the fulfilment of our hope, but we wait for it eagerly because we know it will come without fail. We do not work for it; we wait for it by faith. What are we waiting for? The hope of righteousness. It means this. At the very moment we put our faith in Jesus, we are already holy and blameless in the eyes of God. We are covered in Jesus’ perfect righteousness. We are gorgeous in God’s sight. However, the fullness of our righteousness is yet to come. Today we are still struggling with sin. The fullness of our righteousness will come on the day when we stand before God on the day of judgment, and he pronounces us, “righteous.” And Paul says he can’t wait for that day to come. He is eagerly anticipating the day of judgment.

This is very different from the way I used to picture the day of judgment. The idea of Judgement Day used to terrify me. I was told that on Judgement Day, God would play a video of all my dirty secrets on a gigantic screen for everyone to watch. That freaked me out. How can I have the confidence to stand before the holy God who knows it all? As long as I still live under the law, I would not have the confidence to stand before God. Rather than eagerly waiting for that day, I dreaded that day. But because of the gospel, because I live by faith in Jesus’ perfect work for me, because his blood has covered all my sins, I eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. I long for the day that I will be fully righteous and able to enjoy God forever. That day will certainly come, and I can’t wait for that day to come. And right now, as I wait for that day, in all my weaknesses, sins, and flaws, I am as loved and honoured by God as I will be when I am perfect in heaven.

And if we believe that, it changes the way we live today. Paul says that in Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. It means both spiritual success and spiritual failure mean nothing. We are not affected by it. So, when we do something good on Monday, we say, “This means nothing. Doing good does not make God love me more. God does not love me because I did good. I did good because God loves me.” Circumcision means nothing. But uncircumcision also means nothing. That means when we blow it, when we do something really stupid and selfish, we say, “If I had not blown it, if I had not messed it up, if I had done the right thing, it would not change my status before God. God does not love me less because I did this dumb thing. He accepts me because of Jesus. And God allows me to fail to let me see my sinfulness so I could be humbled. And now I get to experience more of his grace for me and I am confident that he is working all together for good.” Can you see what happened? The gospel gives us equilibrium that nothing else can. God doesn’t love us because we did good. We did good because God loves us. God never unloves us because we did bad. Even the bad things we did are used by God for good. On a good day, we have humility; and on a bad day, we have confidence. There is a freedom of security in our relationship with God. In our high-high and low-low, we are secure. That is why Paul says that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything in our relationship with God. Our hearts are filled with the certainty of God’s love because of who we are in Christ, and it removes our fear.

So then, what is our motivation to live a holy life? Paul says, “Faith working through love.” Saving faith is faith that produces love. But listen. We can only live with love if we live by faith. A loving life is an expression of a life of faith. Until we understand that God accepts us fully simply because of what Jesus has done for us, we will not be able to live a loving life. If we still think that we have to earn God’s acceptance, everything we do will be motivated by selfish desire rather than love. Charles Spurgeon gave a wonderful illustration. Once there was a gardener who grew carrots. Then one day, a huge carrot grew in his field. He was surprised by the size of the carrot, and he took the carrot to his king. He said, “Your majesty, I am a gardener and I have a garden of carrots. And this is the greatest carrot that I have ever produced, and I want to give this carrot to you as a token of love. Only a wonderful king like you deserves to have this huge carrot.” The king appreciated the gesture and took the carrot from the gardener. As the gardener walked away, the king said, “I can see how much you love me by giving me your greatest carrot. You honour me. So, I’ll give you the huge land next to your garden so you can be a much greater gardener than you are now.” The gardener was surprised and went home rejoicing. There was a nobleman in the castle who saw what happened. And he thought, “Oh my. If the gardener received a huge land just for a carrot, what would I get if I gave the king my greatest horse?” So, the next day this nobleman brought his greatest horse to the king and said, “My king, a wonderful king like you deserves the greatest horse. This is the greatest horse I raised, and I want to give it to you as my token of love.” The king smiled and said, “Thank you. I receive your gift. You can go now.” The nobleman was confused. He didn’t receive anything from the king. What happened to the huge land for a carrot? The king discerned his heart and said to him, “Let me tell you what happened. The gardener gave me the carrot, but you were giving yourself the horse.”

Can you see Spurgeon’s point? Spurgeon explained that as long as we are still doing something for God to get something from God, we are not doing it for God; we are doing it for ourselves. We are not doing it out of love; we are doing it out of selfish desires. If we still think we need to do things for God to be saved, we cannot fully love God. Only people who know that God already loves them can truly love God and others. We can only live with love when we know we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. Only the gospel gives us a life of love. Without the gospel, we won’t love God for God; we are simply using God for our own agenda. It is only when we see the beauty of God in the gospel that we love God for who he is.

Let me show you the beauty of the gospel and I am back to my seat. The gospel not only frees us to love God for God’s sake, but the gospel also tells us that we have been loved for our own sake. God does not love us because he wants something from us. We have nothing to offer him. God owns everything. He owns every star, every galaxy, every oxygen, and everything else in the universe; they are all his. And who are we? We are a speck of dust who rebelled against him. We stand condemned and we have nothing to offer him. But God chose to come to us and save us even though we are of no profit to him. Jesus Christ left his glory behind for us. He died on the cross to pay the full price of our sins. He lost everything so that we who have nothing can have everything. Jesus loves us for us. And to the degree we see how much Jesus loves us, to that degree we can love him in return. Now we can obey God not for what we want God to give us; we already have everything guaranteed. We can obey God for who he is and for what he has done for us. Finally, we can love God for God. And we can also love others not for what they can give us, but for who they are in themselves. The gospel makes it possible for us to live a loving life.

Timothy Keller puts it beautifully. “The more joy we have in our gracious salvation, the more we are driven by love and gratitude to do good for the sheer beauty of good, for sheer delight in God, for the sheer love of others. If we are reminding ourselves and living in light of our certain hope, we will have a heart overflowing with love. We don’t need to seek righteousness and welcome from others, since these things are already ours; we are free to love others, seeking their good.” Because we are already loved and accepted by God because of our faith in Jesus, we are now free to love others. We no longer look to other people to meet our needs because Jesus has met our needs. We are filled with the love of Christ. And out of the fullness of Christ’s love for us, we love and serve one another. Now we can say to one another, “Because of Christ, I do not need you to serve me. I can serve you. I do not need you to be nice to me. I can be nice to you. I do not need you to give me what I want. I can give you what you want. I do not need you to love me. I can love you. I do not need you to put me first. I can put you first.” Church, that is the way of love. Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from the sermon?
2. “You must have the balance between trusting the gospel and obeying the law.” Explain the problem with this very common statement.
3. Why is obeying God for the wrong reason as bad as disobeying God?
4. How does the gospel remove the very motivation we have for sin? Give daily life examples (besides lying)
5. Explain how the gospel enables us to live a loving life toward God and one another.