Two Different Roads
We’re gonna start with a question here: What kind of church do you want to be?
Now the reason that I’m asking y’all the question is because y’all — as in we, all of us together — we are the ones who determine the answer. What makes a church the kind of church it is is the people of that church. The pastors have a responsibility to teach the Bible and to shepherd and to lead, but ultimately it’s the church together that forms and shapes that church’s character. And our passage today in Galatians Chapter 5 is all about this.
Last week Pastor David Mathis mentioned that beginning in Chapter 5, the apostle Paul starts to focus on the church’s life together. Paul moves from expounding the gospel in Chapters 1–4, to now he’s exhorting the church about how they should live together because of that gospel.
And verses 7–14 here in Chapter 5 is kinda like a fork in the road. There’s a dichotomy that begins to emerge here, and it’s like Paul is saying to the church:
Hey, you can either be this kind of church OR that kind of church. …
You can go down this road or that road — but you’re gonna go down one road or the other, and who decides, Paul would say, is YOU. It’s who he wrote the letter to. He’s not talking to a denomination; he’s not talking to only pastors; but he’s talking to the church, because the church decides. We decide together the kind of church we’re going to be.
So let me tell you the options that Paul lays out.
The Options Before Us
Go ahead and skip down to verses 14–15 for a minute. This is the conclusion of the passage, but I wanna start with the conclusion so that we can get an idea of the two different roads we’re looking at.
Verse 14 continues verse 13 where Paul says “through love serve one another” — verse 14 says to love your neighbor as yourself. “But if” — verse 15, which marks a contrast — “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”
And those are the two roads. You either love one another (verses 13–14) or you devour one another (verse 15, which connect back to verses 7–12).
It’s either the road of love or the road of strife.
The road of love leads to flourishing; the road of strife leads to destruction — and we need to make sure we’re on the right road.
So what I’d like to do for this sermon is to slow down in this passage and describe more of what these two roads are like:
1. What is the road of strife?
2. What is the road of love?
That’s the plan. Let’s pray:
Father in heaven, you who are with us by your Spirit, in this moment, we ask for more of him. Please pour out your Spirit upon us, and show us the glory of your Son! We ask in his name, the mighty name of Jesus, amen.
1) What Is the Road of Strife?
Okay, so what is the road of strife?
Well, I think there are three things Paul tells us about the road of strife, and first one stands out right away in verse 7. It’s this:
#1 - The road of strife starts with doctrinal compromise. (v. 7)
Look at verse 7. Paul says:
You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?
So this is the metaphor of a long-distance runner, which is one of Paul’s favorite metaphors. He uses it several times in his letters. And the image here is that the church is this runner who’s been running down the right road in good shape. They’ve been trucking along, keeping a good pace, but then somebody hinders them.
The word here for “hindered” is the same word Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians 2:18 when he said that “Satan hindered” his ministry efforts. The idea is to obstruct. It’s to get in the way.
So let’s stick with this running metaphor: imagine that there’s a runner trucking along, doing great. [We have some runners in this church, right?]. Imagine: You’re running along, doing great, but then somebody comes out of nowhere, they start running beside you and then they start jabbing elbows in your side.
But you’re a good runner, and so you keep running, but all these elbows in your side start to change your direction from the one you started down, and before too long you’re going a completely different way, down a completely different road.
That’s what is going on with the Galatians. They’ve been hindered.
And this hindrance that Paul is talking about is a hindrance from obeying the truth. And when Paul uses the word “truth” he means the truth of the gospel (just like he says in Chapter 2, verses 5 and 14). Somebody is hindering this church from the gospel, and this somebody, verse 8, is not God. The church was running well; they were on the right track; but they keep taking in the side that are against the gospel of God. Which means you’re running, and these elbows are saying …
“Hey, faith in the gospel is not enough.”
“Hey, keeping Jewish law is required.”
“Hey, Paul doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Hey, did God really say …?”
And see, the problem is, if you take that first elbow, and then you don’t really resist the second elbow, then the third elbow is gonna land a little bit easier, and the next thing you know you’re just getting used to these elbows, and then, as Paul says in Ephesians, you end up getting “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (4:14).
You end up on the road of strife, headed toward destruction, and it all started by giving just a little bit of space to an elbow that contradicts the truth of the gospel. The result of one compromise will lead to a very different place from where you were meaning to go.
Look, I know there are some who might roll their eyes at churches who are serious about doctrine. I get that there are some who might ridicule churches who are concerned about “slippery slopes” — I get it — but I just wanna say that the importance of doctrine and vigilance against false doctrine, that comes from the New Testament. It’s what the Bible says. And the question of whether we do what the Bible says is the question of whether we actually want to be a real church.
Because churches who forsake the Bible, churches who abandon the truth of the gospel — like the Galatians were on the verge of doing — they are not real churches anymore. Now they still might have a building; they might meet together on Sundays; but if they have forsaken the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are not a real church. And for all so-called churches in these Twin Cities, I want to replace them with a church plant. That’s what we’re trying to do here, God willing.
When it comes to the road of strife, it starts with doctrinal compromise.
#2 - The road of strife gradually worsens over time. (v. 8)
Paul says in verse 8: “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” And this means he’s changed the metaphor. He goes from talking about running a race to now he’s talking about bread-making, and the connection between the two is the gradualness of the effect.
It doesn’t take that many elbows for a runner to veer off course, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of leaven to make bread. Just a little bit changes the entire thing (see 1 Corinthians 5:6).
See, for the Galatians, maybe this seemed to be a small issue —
we’re were just talking about circumcision, right? Relax!
we’re just talking about keeping a few Jewish laws, right? That’s all!
— and Paul says, Look, just like it doesn’t take a lot of leaven to make bread, the slightest deviation from the truth of the gospel will eventually lead to destruction.
And of course you never get to see this in real time. We don’t have a time-lapse perspective on a church’s apostasy. We seldom ever see get to see something decay as it’s actually happening. The closest example in my mind of where we might see this is when I go bowling.
I went bowling with some friends a couple weeks ago, and I did horrible. I bowled so badly that I lost respect for myself. I’m working through it. But the way bowling works is, you know, there are ten frames, and you get a couple rolls each frame, and they have the computer that’s calculating your score.
And in that first frame, you know you leave a couple pins — but it’s no big deal. You get more chances. Then you leave a couple pins the next few frames — and you think it’s fine because you’re still knocking down most of pins, but if you keep doing that (maybe you gutter one) and the next thing you know the game’s over, you bowled a 77, and you hate yourself.
It’s a gradual thing. It was a couple pins here and there. But it adds up and gets worse. It always starts smaller than what it becomes. We need to know this about the road of strife. Most people don’t say, Hey, I choose strife! But it happens over time. We need to know that.
#3 - The road of strife must be seen for what it is, and thus rejected. (vv. 10–12, 15)
Paul makes it clear in verses 10–12 what the Galatians are up against. He starts,
I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view.
Remember, the Galatians had been tempted to embrace a different view of the gospel than what Paul preached, but Paul said in Chapter 1 that there’s really no such thing. There are not different views of the gospel. There is the gospel as Paul preached it, or there’s no gospel at all.
In fact, remember what Paul said in Chapter 1, verses 8 and 9. He said twice that “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received [from me], let him be accursed.” That’s an imprecatory statement. In Chapter 1, Paul spoke a curse on these false teachers, and it’s relevant in Chapter 5 because he’s about to do it again. Look at the second part of verse 10. Paul is confident in the Lord that the Galatians are gonna get this right and he’s confident that …
the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.
Paul is saying that these false teachers, these troublers, will face the judgment of God. God will punish them for their deceit, or actually in this case, it’s singular. It seems like Paul is talking about one person: “whoever he is” — do you see that?
Maybe this is the ring leader of these false teachers — we don’t know — but what’s important for us to see, I think, is that Paul speaks differently about the church than he does about the false teacher.
When it’s the church, Paul is hopeful. Now he exhorts them strongly; he admonishes them; but he doesn’t give up on them.
But for the false teacher, Paul is already speaking judgment on him. Which helps us understand verse 12.
Skip to verse 12 for a minute. In verser 10 Paul has already said that this false teacher will be punished. Now he says, verse 12, “I wish that those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!”
And that means precisely what you think it means … if you think it means castration. Paul is saying that those false teachers who are teaching that circumcision is needed for salvation might as well go ahead and keep on cutting.
This is the second most intense thing that the apostle Paul says in any of his letters.
The most intense thing is what Paul has already said here in Chapter 1 when he said that the false teachers should be accursed. Because by accursed he means eternal damnation. Which means that if we think Paul is being more severe in Chapter 5 verse 12 than he is in Chapter 1 verse 9 it’s because we don’t understand hell. … And it’s because we don’t understand the gravity of this situation!
What’s at stake here is verse 15. It’s the total destruction of this church; it’s the full apostasy of all these Christians! And unless we get how serious this is, nothing else that Paul is saying is gonna make sense.
Seeing the Wonderful Cross
The false teachers were teaching that circumcision is necessary for salvation —
which means they were saying the death of Jesus was not enough;
they were treating the death of Jesus like it’s a coupon;
they were spreading a man-centered false gospel heresy —
and Paul says in verse 11:
If I was preaching that garbage, I would not be persecuted, because in that case, according to that message, the offense of the cross is removed.
What does Paul mean by that? What makes the cross offensive?
Simply put, what makes the cross the offensive is that the cross says you can do nothing to save yourself. Nothing. The cross says that you are wrong … and you’re needy.
And we don’t like to be wrong or needy. The cross says you are so sinful and depraved, you are so broken and distorted in your sin, that you can’t do anything to change it yourself, but the only chance you’ve got is the death of Jesus in your place. Do you see? The only way you can be saved is if Jesus Christ the Son of God is slain for you.
The Jewish people consider that shameful; Greeks consider that foolish; every sinful human considers that offensive … until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to know that this cross is actually wonderful.
Because this cross, the cross, is the display of God’s love for us. The cross is God saying, I love you this much …
and if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Do you see it? The cross is the keyhole to all grace.
This cross is our life. This cross is our boast. The cross of Jesus is everything to us.
And the Galatians have to get this. Because they were headed down the road of strife, and it must be seen for what it is and rejected. Don’t go that way.
And if we don’t go that way, then we must go the other way. We reject the road of strife, and we choose the road of love. And so let’s learn more about this road. We’ve seen the road of strife, now What is the road of love?
2) What Is the Road of Love?
Well, I think in this passage Paul also tells us three things about the road of love, and we see the first in verse 13:
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.
Right away this tells us …
#1 - The road of love does not misuse freedom to indulge the flesh. (v. 13ab)
Verse 13 connects us back to last week’s passage, to Chapter 5, verse 1, where Paul tells us that Jesus has set us free.
Jesus has saved us by his grace through our faith in him, not by our works, and he has freed us from sin and the law and the curse and from death. All the things that used to enslave us and trap us in fear — the power of those things that used to rule us — has been broken.
Pastor David said last week: we are freed from those things AND we are freed for loving one another. Verse 13 here just extends what we’ve already seen in verse 6, but here Paul adds the negative warning: “Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.”
Now at the most basic level, the reason Paul gives this warning not to misuse our freedom is because it’s possible to misuse our freedom. And we know this. You know this.
You’re saved by faith in Jesus; you’re not saved by good works; and so then you might think that since I’m not saved by good works then I don’t have to do any good works — if I don’t have to love others in order to be saved, why bother?
I remember a conversation I had with a neighbor a few years ago. He comes from a nominal Catholic background, and I was explaining to him the meaning of grace. I said that we can never deserve God’s love for us. God’s grace means that God loves us because he loves us, not because we’ve done anything ourselves to make him love us. And you know what he said?
He said: Oh, so that means I can go out and live and party and do whatever I want, and just ask God to forgive me, and he will. You mean I can just do or not do whatever I want and God just loves me.
Maybe you’ve heard responses like that before. Maybe you’ve thought that yourself. But see, Paul understood that responses (and behavior) like that are possible. People can misuse their freedom to indulge their flesh, but it’s only because they don’t actually understand grace.
See, in this wrong way of thinking, people confuse grace and salvation. Grace is how we are saved, but what is this salvation that grace brings us into? Ultimately our salvation is that we get God. We belong to God. Grace does not make us a god unto ourselves, but grace reconciles us back to the God who made us and fills us with his Spirit. Our salvation is fellowship with God and in that fellowship we have the freedom to live for God’s glory … and for others and their good.
This brings us to the second thing Paul tells us about the road of love.
#2 - The road of love through love serves one another. (v. 13c)
Look at the end of verse 13. Don’t misuse freedom to indulge the flesh, but, verse 13:
Through love serve one another.
And this is the absolute perfect way to say it. In light of what’s going on with the Galatians, Paul says it this way on purpose: “Through love serve one another.”
So it’s not just serve, but it’s serve through love. It’s not just love, but it’s through love serve.
See … serving without love is busyness, but love without serving is empty. So we need them both to stay together.
There is a way to serve others not from love. It’s a kind of going through the motions that might either be frenzied or it might be boring — it may look like a lot of activity, or it may look humdrum — but either way, serving without love means we’re doing things but we’ve lost touch with our motive. It means maybe we’ve gotten “good” at ministry but we’ve forgotten the heart behind it. This is something to beware of. Serving without love is busyness …
But love without serving is empty. There is a way to only theoretically understand the importance of love. If you read the Bible, you have to at least start here, because the Bible has so much to say about love. We can easily see that love is important, and we can nod our heads, but if we’re not actually putting love into action by serving others in tangible ways, then we are missing it.
Don’t just check the box that love is important, show love. Don’t just agree with the idea of love, but practice love through actions. First John 3:18, “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
So SERVE through love;
through love serve —
— this is the road of love, and if we’re all thinking this way, if we as men and women are centered on the gospel and holding these things together … it will change your home; it will change a church; it will change a city.
This is the road of love.
Last thing to see here:
#3 - The road of love embraces the depths of love. (v. 14)
Now we all know that the word “love” is overused. It’s so common that it doesn’t sound profound to us. It doesn’t come across as significant. It might even sound a little trite or cliche, right? But to be clear, that is not at all the way the Bible talks about love. Look at verse 14:
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The whole law. y’all. All of the laws in the Old Testament about how we should treat one another. All of them. Paul says it’s really quite simple. He says the same thing in Romans 13:8–10,
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
So there you go! So next time you’re reading the Old Testament and you get a little confused, just skip to here. This is your answer in the back of the book. All the laws are basically one law: love.
And Jesus taught us this: the greatest commandment of all, he said, is to love God with everything you are; the second commandment is to love others. Jesus said on these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets (see Matthew 22:37–40).
Love God; love people. Simple, right?
But do we really have any idea how deep this is?
First, love is our primary calling in relation to God. We are called to love God, which does not mean to merely have a positive, sentimental disposition toward him. But we are called to love God as in have a wholehearted, life-encompassing, community-impacting, exclusive commitment to God.
See, a lot of folks might think they love God because they have some good feelings about him. Jesus said to love God with every fiber of your being … and … love other people too. Ultimately, love them as in seek their good in God. Serve others through love so that they would know a little bit more about God’s love for them.
And see now we’ve come to the very foundation of it all.
The Foundation of It All
We’ve looked at these two roads — we’ve seen the road of strife and now we’ve looked at the road of love — and whichever road our church takes is for our church to decide. So can we decide love? [Can we all agree on that?!]
But see, get this: if we are going to walk down and keep walking down this road of love, the most important thing is to know God’s love for us. The apostle John says “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). And that is profoundly true. We’re talking depths here.
I like the way one pastor has put it: He says, “a heart aloof from God grows aloof from others. …and ends up engaging in merciless comparisons and endless faultfinding” — or Paul would say you devour one another. This is strife! — And “therefore all restoration” — any renewal we might experience in our love for one another — “begins by going back to God first, prodigals that we are.” (Ray Ortlund, The Gospel, 117)
This is where the road of love starts, and it’s what we have to remind one another every step along the way.
God — the Creator of the heavens and earth; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Yahweh who says I will be who I will be and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy — God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who through the gospel of Jesus Christ has become our Father who knows the very number of hairs on our heads, even as he knew us and chose us before the foundations of the world not to be destined for wrath but to obtain salvation, this God who is so radically for us that nothing can be against us, and nothing can come between us, this God … loves you. He loves you. He loves you.
And he made that clear to us at the cross of Jesus, which brings us to this Table.
The Table
At this Table, as we receive the bread and the cup, we give Jesus thanks for his death in our place. We eat and we drink remembering that Jesus and his cross is everything to us. And if that’s your story this morning, if you trust in Jesus Christ, if you know that you are loved by God, we invite you to eat and drink with us.
