Participants: Mark Howard & Jim Howard
Series Code: GBOTB
Program Code: GBOTB000011A
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00:23 Welcome back to another episode of Books of the Book.
00:25 I'm Pastor Mark Howard and director of the Emmanuel 00:27 Institute of evangelism in the Michigan conferences 00:29 Seventh-day Adventist as well as the Pastor of the 00:30 Gobels Seventh-day Adventist church in Gobels Michigan. 00:32 I'm here at my co-host, my younger brother Jim. 00:35 Yes, my name is Jim Howard and I too am a Pastor 00:38 in the Michigan conference. 00:39 I pastor the Detroit Metropolitan and South Lyons 00:42 Seventh-day Adventist churches. 00:43 We have been going through the book of Galatians and you know 00:47 Jim it has been a pleasure, working with my kid brother 00:50 on the Galatians book as we been going through and studying. 00:54 We had some really great discussions on so many powerful 00:59 truths in the book of Galatians. 01:01 - yes we have. 01:02 Today is going to be no different, we're studying in the 01:04 book of Galatians and will be in Chapter 5. 01:06 If you're watching at home you will need to have a Bible 01:08 nearby I would encourage you to pick it up and follow 01:11 along with us. 01:12 We are going to Galatians 5 and you will find it in the 01:14 New Testament starting with Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, 01:18 Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and then Galatians. 01:21 We're going to Galatians 5:13. 01:26 This is something we haven't commented a lot on. 01:29 We are going to pick up on here were the apostle Paul 01:33 writes in Galatians 5:13, "for you, brother, have been 01:37 "called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an 01:42 "opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one 01:45 "another. 14. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, 01:49 "even in this: 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself'. 01:53 "But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you 01:57 "be consumed by one another!" 01:59 Now the point that Paul is trying to make is this. 02:04 The Judaizing teachers have come in and pushed a false 02:08 gospel upon the Galatians, the gospel of circumcision. 02:13 And so as we have discussed this Jim, the Galatians 02:18 have accepted this false gospel and Paul is trying to 02:21 point out is that there is a disconnect with their 02:24 behavior and their faith. 02:26 There is always going to be a corresponding action 02:32 to your belief system. 02:34 There is going to be a corresponding lifestyle and Paul 02:37 is trying to help them to see that their lifestyle is 02:40 not Christian and that should clue them in to the fact 02:43 that something is wrong in this situation. 02:46 Now one of the things he brings up here Jim, in this 02:49 passage is, we need to touch on this, this idea that 02:52 so many people miss the point when Paul is saying, 02:55 all the law is fulfilling one word, even this 02:57 you should love your neighbor as yourself. 03:01 They take that as Paul saying that really the 03:05 Ten Commandments don't exist anymore as long as 03:08 we love each other. 03:09 I think you were going to comment on that. 03:12 Yes, there is a verse in Romans 13 that is a parallel 03:15 verse to this and I wonder if we could turn there 03:18 together, Romans 13:8. 03:23 The apostle Paul here writing also and is expounding 03:27 in a different way to the Romans. 03:29 He says, "owe no one anything except to love one another, 03:33 "for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the 03:37 "Commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall 03:40 "not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false 03:43 "witness, you shall not covet, and if there is any other 03:46 "Commandment, are all summed up in this saying namely, 03:49 "you shall love your neighbor as yourself. 03:52 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the 03:56 "fulfillment of the law. " 03:58 So here he uses a word here that I think is very important. 04:02 He says, they are all summed up in this saying, you shall 04:06 love your neighbor as yourself. 04:08 Basically what he is saying is look, if you love your 04:11 neighbor, you are not going to sin against them. 04:14 You're not going to get into an adulterous relationship. 04:16 You are not going to lie to them, you're not going to 04:19 harm them and so the idea of loving your neighbor 04:23 you would naturally be keeping those commandments if 04:27 you were loving your neighbor. 04:28 The idea here is not that love replaces the law, but that 04:32 the love sums up the law. 04:34 There is a very clear distinction. 04:36 The other thing that is worth noting here is that he says, 04:39 you shall love your neighbor as yourself and that is 04:42 actually found in the Old Testament in Leviticus 19. 04:46 So to say that you shall love your neighbor as yourself 04:50 replaces the Ten Commandments would be kind of silly. 04:54 Back in the Old Testament they had this same command, 04:58 love your neighbor as yourself in Leviticus 19:18 and 05:01 yet that did not do away with the Ten Commandments back 05:05 then so why would it do away with it now? 05:07 So the apostle Paul is simply making the point in 05:09 Galatians that love will sum up the law and those who love 05:13 will fulfill the law. 05:15 That's right, we have already seen that Paul is positive about 05:18 the Ten Commandments, it's just the misuse 05:20 of the Ten Commandments that he is concerned with. 05:22 The same thing in the teachings of Jesus which made me 05:24 think of that when you said that. 05:26 Matthew 22:35 the Bible says, then one of them, a lawyer" 05:31 one who specialized in this case religious law. 05:35 "He asked him a question testing him and saying Teacher, 05:39 "which is the great Commandment in the law? Jesus said to 05:43 "him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your 05:46 "heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 05:49 "This is the first and great Commandment. " 05:51 Now if we wanted to be a realistic with what Paul just 05:54 said, we could say that Paul really took away even one 05:57 of these commandments of Jesus. 05:58 He didn't bring that one up, he only brought the next one 06:01 where Jesus says, "and the second is like it: you shall 06:04 "love your neighbor as yourself. " 06:05 Now the point is Paul was trying to focus on an aspect, 06:09 let's read verse 40 where Jesus says, "on these two 06:12 Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. " 06:15 All he is trying to say is this purity like the law is 06:17 summed up in these two principles, but first one love 06:20 God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. 06:22 That sums up the first four commandments dealing 06:25 with our love to God. 06:26 Our service to God that kind of thing. 06:29 The last six commandments of the 10 are summed up in 06:33 loving your neighbor as yourself. 06:35 Of course Paul was dealing specifically in the context 06:37 in Galatians with the way they were treating one another 06:39 and so he highlights the importance of love. 06:44 It is easy for us to get caught up in certain duties. 06:49 Okay I'm not going to steal and I'm not going to lie, 06:53 but in our heart we can harbor malice or bitterness. 06:56 So that was what was happening in Galatia and Paul 06:59 highlighted that as a problem that was going on there. 07:02 Certainly he wasn't negating the importance of the 07:05 Commandments of God anymore than Jesus was right here 07:08 as He talked to this lawyer about the great Commandments. 07:14 If you look back in Galatians in Chapter 5, the apostle 07:17 Paul is beginning to talk about this principle of love, 07:22 which is really only possible through the new birth. 07:26 We can't truly love someone unless we have a union with 07:31 Christ who is love. 07:32 You know that makes me think of this Jim. 07:34 Because it is true as we were just commenting, I've heard 07:37 people say I don't think it is so important that we keep 07:40 the Ten Commandments anymore and usually if I ask why? 07:43 Because it is impossible for us to keep the commandments 07:46 and what we need to do is to just love. 07:48 That betrays the misconception of the carnal mind to 07:53 believe it would be any easier for us to love the way 07:58 God wants us to love, then it would be to 08:01 keep the Ten Commandments. 08:02 It would be easier in a sense, I was going to say would 08:05 be easier to keep the Ten Commandments but the reality 08:07 is it is one and the same. 08:09 Is that love that prompts the true keeping of the 08:12 Commandments and it's impossible for us to love our neighbor as 08:16 ourself unless we have a born-again experience. 08:20 That's right, and that is exactly where the apostle Paul 08:23 goes, and as we continue through this episode and the next 08:26 we are going to see the apostle Paul gets more and more 08:29 practical, helping them to see that this experience of 08:33 the gospel should change the way that they live. 08:36 He draws that out in verse 16 of Galatians 5. 08:38 I would like to read there and it says, "I say then: 08:41 "walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust 08:44 "of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, 08:47 "and the Spirit against flesh; and these are contrary to 08:50 "one another, so that you do not do the things that you 08:53 "wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are 08:57 "not under the law. " 08:58 Now here in these few verses he starts by saying walk 09:03 in the Spirit, so walking denotes in your life a very 09:07 practical instruction that he is giving. 09:09 The way that you live should be in the Spirit. 09:12 He draws this contrast, the Spirit is going to fight 09:17 against the flesh, and the flesh is going 09:19 to fight against the Spirit. 09:21 The idea here is that even for someone who is a converted 09:23 Christian, meaning someone who has been born again 09:26 and have had that change of heart. 09:28 The pride has been subdued, humility has come in 09:31 and they have seen Christ lifted up and they have 09:34 a love and affection for Him. 09:36 Even though that is there, the flesh is still there. 09:39 That carnal selfish heart is still there. 09:44 What it does is that it fights against the divine nature, 09:48 the Spirit of God that is inside of us. 09:50 There is this war, this battle that goes on. 09:53 So whatever happens, whatever choices we have to make in 09:57 life, it is not like we have no resistance from the 10:01 inside, that flesh is still there. 10:03 What the apostle Paul is telling us, walk in the Spirit 10:07 and keep that flesh subdued. 10:08 That's right, in fact we actually see a really clear 10:11 picture of that in Romans 7 where the apostle Paul 10:14 spells this out a little more clearly. 10:17 All he says in Galatians is that the flesh and the Spirit 10:20 are contrary so you don't do the things you want to do, 10:24 or the things you would or wish to do. 10:27 We see that played out in Romans 7:14. 10:29 I'm going to start at first 14 were here Paul says, 10:33 "for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am 10:36 "carnal, sold under sin. " So we already see to contrary 10:39 things, we see spiritual and carnal. 10:41 What happens there? He says, "15. For what I am doing, 10:46 "I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do 10:51 "not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16. If, then, 10:55 "I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it 11:00 "is good. 17. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but 11:03 "sin that dwells in me. 18. For I know that in me (that 11:07 "is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is 11:11 "present with me, but how to perform what is good I do 11:14 "not find. 19. For the good that I will to do, I do not 11:17 "do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. " 11:21 So the whole point Paul is making is he has this internal 11:24 battle, he wants to do right but he does wrong. 11:27 He wants to resist wrong, but he does it anyway. 11:30 He has this conflict and he says in the course of this, 11:34 because the law points out things that he can see are 11:38 wrong he realizes the law is good. 11:40 I agree with the law that it is good, the only problem is, 11:44 and this is interesting, he is not battling against the law 11:48 now, he is not saying I don't think we need to keep the 11:51 law, he realizes we do need to keep the law. 11:54 The only problem is my flesh isn't subject to the law. 11:58 I can't find how to keep the law and so he is stuck in 12:02 this experience where it said in Galatians that the person 12:06 who is led by the Spirit is not under the law. 12:07 We have talked about the person who is under the law, 12:09 under the dominion of sin. 12:11 Romans 6:14 says, you are not under law but under grace, 12:15 sin shall not have dominion over you because you are 12:19 not under law but under grace. 12:20 When sin has dominion over you that means you are 12:22 a slave to sin and what is the description here of 12:25 this man's struggle except that he is a slave. 12:27 He can even do his own will. 12:28 He has to everything his master says, 12:31 and his master is the flesh. 12:32 Wow if you keep reading in this passage it gets even more 12:38 practical, when you look at verse 20 he says, "now if I do 12:42 "what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but 12:46 "sin that dwells in me. 21. I find then a law, that evil 12:50 "was present with me, the one who wills a to do good. 12:53 "For I delight in the law of God according to the inward 12:56 "man. 23 but I see another law in my members, warring 12:59 "against the law of my mind, and bringing me into 13:01 "captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 13:04 "O wretched man that I am! Who would deliver me from this 13:08 "body of death? 25. I thank God-through Jesus Christ our 13:11 "Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of 13:15 "God, but with the flesh the law of sin. " 13:18 Now this is a powerful passage in one of the key points 13:21 here that I would like to draw out is that many people 13:24 read here and say that is me. 13:28 I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 13:30 I will to do good but I'm not. 13:34 That is just like the apostle Paul so that should be just 13:38 fine, in other words my good intentions are really 13:41 all that God needs. 13:43 He knows that inside I know what is right, even though 13:45 I may not be doing right. 13:47 They take Romans 7 as a stopping place. - that's right, 13:50 that's right but we recognize that according to Jesus, 13:54 He says that not everyone says to me Lord, Lord will be in 13:57 the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My 14:00 Father in heaven. 14:01 Good intentions is not exactly what God is seeking for. 14:04 We are going to dive a little deeper into this in just a 14:06 moment, but right now we need to go to break and 14:08 we will be right back with you. |
Revised 2023-04-24