 please you know open with the word of prayer yeah yes ma'am so am i audible ma'am oh yes yeah okay yes thank you ma'am okay let's pray dear heavenly father we thank you for this beautiful day beautiful time lord this morning father god we come to you father god bringing ourselves to you lord jesus as we are going to learn this season father we ask you that help us to learn and understand your word father god and as we are going through this season we submit difficult ma'am to your mighty hand jesus lead her and guided father god as well as all the students lord jesus you need us and guide us and what do you want us to teach teachers lord thank you in jesus and we pray amen amen thank you so much oh yeah so uh we've been looking at the epistle to the galatians and we have covered four chapters so we will cover the remaining two chapters today so we would be finishing galatians today uh so right now we are in galatians five uh if we can have one person um reading out for us versus one to four galatians five uh versus one to four if someone could read out we can get started right away can you question yeah for freedom christ has set us free stand from there for and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery look i paul say to you that if you accept circumcision christ will be of no advantage to you i testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that is obligated to get the law whole law to what uh was for you are severe from christ who you who would be justified by the law you have fallen away from grace okay yeah um so here we basically have paul telling the people that there are two covenants one is a cancelled covenant the old covenant has been cancelled and now there is a new covenant uh so in the previous four chapters he's been uh scolding the galatians and you know telling them after i have taught you the truth and that now you are under the new covenant and that now you should place your faith in christ after having taught you all of these things why are you going back to an old cancelled covenant you know is what he has been saying to them all along in the four chapters so now he uh kind of begins to issue warnings you know and so here in chapter five he's saying this is very dangerous it's not like as if there are two options available and then you just pick the one that you feel like picking um it's very uh serious because if you are now going to place yourself under the old cancelled covenant the new covenant privileges will no longer apply to you so it is a serious thing so which is why he says over here in galatians five verse two paul uh i paul tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised christ will be of no value to you at all so all that christ has won on the cross the eternal life that he's offering free all of that is not going to apply to you any longer if you consciously say i'm going to place myself under the mosaic covenant and i'm going to get circumcised and i'm going to earn my way into heaven so if that is your plan be warned that the benefits of the new covenant will no longer be applicable at all so you got to make a choice you can't say i'll have a little bit of the new covenant and i would like to hold on to a little bit of the old cancelled covenant that does not it does not work that way because god cancelled out the old one so it's no longer applicable so if you choose to hold on to the old one the benefits of the new one will no longer you know be applicable to you and of course the larger greater risk you know in in going back to that cancelled old covenant is that nobody's ever going to be able to keep it and if you know looking at that james chapter two verse ten all along just to you know gain clarity where it very very plainly says whoever keeps the whole law yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it so these two diesers who are saying that we should go back to the mosaic covenant and observe that while holding on still to the new one you know they want to have a little bit of both so he's basically pointing out that under the old covenant they are going to make a mess because they will at least stumble in one or two laws and when they stumble in those one or two laws it's as if they have broken the entire mosaic law so there's no way they're going to gain god's acceptance by obeying the law and at the same time they would have lost out on the benefits of the new covenant so he says what you're trying to do over here is very dangerous he says in verse four you who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ you have fallen away from grace imagine it's like as if you are choosing to be cut off from Christ and the grace which is being offered will no longer be applicable to you so he is now becoming very serious in the words that he is using because he wants them to understand that it is a matter of life and death that's going on over here okay so he needs them to understand the urgency so you can choose to be saved by the law or you can choose to be saved by grace if you say I want to be saved by the law grace is no longer applicable to you okay so that's the issue that he is now raising here so then we would go into verses five and six but before we do that yes if we can have Charles asking his question yeah go ahead Charles okay thank you so much pastor um uh the law and the grace and the people that there is a group of people that are no longer reading the old the Old Testament because of the book of Galatians so what is USA about it like the old covenant is no longer working even the writings that he um you remember I don't remember well I think it is in Colossians where they said that there was a handwriting that was condemning us and he removed it so they're saying that the writing that was condemning us which is the Old Testament is is really bad so they no longer even read it they read the New Testament only what is your say pastor uh like we saw in one of the previous sessions the law had a purpose it served its purpose it served its function it was supposed to serve as a guardian it was supposed to serve as a tutor it was supposed to show the Israelites and all the other people you know who chose to come under it uh it it showed them that on their own they can never ever really uh become acceptable in God's eyes because they will end up at least you know um breaking some of the laws and in fact later in one in even as we are going to be covering chapter five and six we will see that even Paul uh you know at one point uh he he says um that you know I was faultless in keeping the law quite a statement to make okay because I mean there would be eyewitnesses seeing whether uh what he is saying is true or not so he says you know back then when I was still following Judaism I was faultless in keeping the law and even him after you know having so faultlessly keeping all of those mosaic laws he too could not acquire salvation through that method so the law is was it's not evil it had a function to perform it was meant to show people who are being really faultless in their in their keeping of the law that while they may be keeping the letter of the law my they have broken the spirit the spirit of the law which is you know behind those because you can maybe go through a set of rituals and uh outwardly really try your best to stay in line with those things but in your heart are you able to keep uh you know keep your heart in line with the law for instance you know you really hate somebody and um uh the you know the the law says you must not strike them you must not call them fool you must not murder so you refrain from doing that you are a godly person and you want to stay in line with the law so you're so careful to keep the law but in your heart there is this hatred which is just surging and you have no control over it because you see you're still the old sinful spirit and um you have not been renewed by Christ so on your own you may struggle and struggle but in your heart you have not overcome so paul had all these all this dirt inside he had jealousy he had the spirit of competitiveness and he had all of these things which he had no control over and that's why he says in roman 7 you know he says I really wanted to to you know to obey the law but it's like I said there's a part of me which which I had no control over and so I you know I came to a point where I cried out and said is there any hope for someone like me and then he goes on to talk about the new covenant and how the new covenant you know changed his life so um so the law is a good thing but the law the function of the law the main function of the law was to point out to us that on our own we can never follow the commandments of god we need a renewal we literally need to be reborn into a new person and something which christ alone can do when we when that happens then through the power of the holy spirit we will be able to start fulfilling the law because now in chapters five and six in two three places paul says that we believers are fulfilling the law in fact he says we are fulfilling the entire law so the law was never ever considered as evil it was god given god you know but in the old testament it it served the function of tutor to show people that they can never keep it on their own they are we humans are fully dependent on the lord and it's only through his enabling power will we ever be able to fully you know fulfill the law and in fact in galatians five and six paul goes on to say you know what you walk in line with the spirit you'll actually fulfill the law so i guess that would be my take on how we should look at the law in the new testament would that is that helpful yes it is thank you pastor yeah so all right then in that case we'll continue so if someone could read out for us galatians chapter five and we're looking at verses five and six if someone could read out they may read for we through the spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith when christ jesus neither circumcision nor and circumcision avails anything but faith working through love amen yes so here uh he's he says you know um if you choose to be under the grace under the new covenant then you know you can eagerly await the righteousness for which you hope for and because it will be given to you you know your your your weight will not be in vain what you're waiting for eagerly you will receive and over here when he's talking about the righteousness for which we hope um he's talking about righteousness at two levels um maybe we could uh if someone could read out for us jude uh verse 24 you know jude has only one chapter so jude verse 24 if someone could read out child go ahead now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you believe us before the presence of his glory a great job yeah i think she kind of got muted or something so yeah we'll we'll just go ahead um so with jude 24 um there are two kinds of righteousness being mentioned over here you know it's talking about um Jesus Christ to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault okay so um there's righteousness which is you know made available to us on a daily basis as in even as we cooperate with the spirit of god uh you know uh jesus helps us uh not to stumble he helps us to live in a way that honors the lord so he keeps us from stumbling he helps us to live in a righteous manner so we have this daily hope that christ is going to be there is going to help me today from uh keep me from stumbling he will cause me to be righteous you know in my thoughts in my speech in my actions so we have that hope on a daily basis we also have this hope that we are looking to you know that day when we stand in front of god uh at that time jesus christ will present us before his glorious presence without fault because that day when we stand there we will stand clothed in the righteousness of christ completely faultless okay so um this is the hope that we have and this hope is available only to those who are under the new covenant um because he goes on to say in verse six galatians five verse six he says uh neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value so if you get circumcised it doesn't mean that god is going to you know grant you salvation at the same time if you say oh okay i choose to be uncircumcised that doesn't you know gain you plus points in any way with god so circumcision and uncircumcision both of them are not going to gain you any kind of plus points with god what is the only thing that is going to help you get your salvation the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love okay genuine faith there is a faith which a lot of people have uh which is just a fake faith now that will not lead to salvation but there is something called genuine faith and that genuine faith that will automatically express itself through love so if you have that kind of a genuine faith then yes that is the only way you're going to gain god's approval and gain entry into his kingdom so is is what is being told over here um so what exactly is this faith which expresses itself through love um and you know james again explains to us what exactly is genuine faith of course we're all very familiar with this you know with these passages but let's just now take a look at it as more as a reminder to ourselves of what actually faith should look like so james chapter two uh versus 20 to 24 which talk about what actual genuine faith looks like james to 20 to 24 please james to 20 to 24 you foolish person do you want evidence that faith do you want evidence that faith without deed is useless was not our father ibrahim considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar you see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did and the scripture was fulfilled that says ibrahim believed god and it was credited to him as righteousness and he was called god's frank 24 sorry 24 you see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone okay now if you misinterpret this this passage you know you could go down a completely wrong track so it's so important to understand what is being said over here in no way is this passage saying that you know you need to add works to your faith to gain salvation this passage very much is very very clearly saying that salvation is by faith alone the good works that you and I do cannot earn salvation for us because our good works will never be good enough in god's eyes okay so you do not earn salvation by good works but there is a point being made over here about what kind of faith a person needs to have so over here he he says um you know you you know James who's talking to his audience he says you foolish person do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless and so then he goes on to say he gives the example of Abraham now Abraham was he says in verse 21 James 2 21 Abraham was considered righteous for what he did okay but we also know according to you know Genesis chapter 15 that when god credited righteousness to Abraham it was not because of anything that Abraham did but simply because of what he believed god takes him out under the you know night sky and says look up at the sky look at all the stars innumerable stars start counting them we will never finish counting because there are that many stars and so Abraham chooses to even the man who cannot even bear one child yet he chooses to believe that god who made a promise will keep it and so because he believes in god it is credited to him as righteousness so at that point of time he had not done any deeds at all but that man that faith which he exercised on on a standing over there under the night sky that was genuine faith god who looked into his heart discerned his heart and saw that the faith which he is expressing is genuine faith and so later on you know when the trials and tests come along at that time when the when this when this faith is tested when this faith is tried it will be proven as genuine circumstances will prove that this man's faith is genuine so the proof of it will come later you know when when he has to act out his faith right when he has to take a stand for certain things when he many has to make certain choices on that day it will be clearly proved whether you know the faith which he has now exercised is genuine or not and god even before he performed any of those deeds you know before he before Abraham performed any of those good deeds god already knew that the faith which he has expressed right now is genuine and so in that moment itself god credits it to him as righteousness so in verse James chapter 2 verse 22 where it says you see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did it's not saying that if you do good works and you attach them you know you do the mosaic law and get circumstances and do all of that and you attach that to your faith only then salvation comes it's not saying that what it is saying is that if a person's faith is genuine it will be completed each time you do works because it will show that you are a person who has genuinely submitted to the Lord you genuinely are trusting him and obeying him you genuinely have made your walk with him and you're not going to change your mind so all your actions will continue to prove again and again that yours is a complete faith yours is a genuine faith on the other hand if you know the faith which you expressed in the beginning was fake you know it was just this momentary you know burst of feeling just an emotional burst of feeling not really backed up by any decision that you have made in your heart that from now on I choose to trust Christ and follow him if you've not done that and it's just a fake faith later on you know and when the tests and trials come along you will not take a stand for Christ and then it will be shown that your faith is incomplete so it's not saying that works complete your faith as in gaining your salvation the works only prove whether first of all your faith was genuine in the first place or not so in that sense in verse 23 James 2 23 scripture was fulfilled so when this man was willing to take his child and you know sacrifice him I mean I was getting ready to sacrifice him on the altar at that time it proved very very clearly that the faith which he had expressed long ago many years back when he was standing under the night sky what faith he had expressed at that time was very much genuine and so now this this event where he's standing near the altar next to the altar raising up the knife to kill his son even as he's standing over there getting ready to do that you know it shows that scripture was indeed fulfilled that this man who had placed his faith at that time was indeed it was a genuine act and so when God credited to him as righteousness it is indeed the correct thing that was done so all that is proved now because of the actions which he you know demonstrated many many years later and so verse 24 James 2 24 he says James says you see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone so here coming back to our Galatians chapter 5 and you're looking at verse 6 when it says only thing which counts for salvation is a faith which expresses itself through love that is the kind of faith that Paul is saying whether you get circumcised or not that is not going to gain your plus points the only thing that can gain you your salvation is faith a genuine faith how does a genuine faith behave it expresses itself in love so then he goes on to explain what does he mean by you know expresses itself in love I mean yeah I think someone is not muted it does everyone have a kind of you know a bad transmission going on I mean are most of you able to hear what I'm saying and you know and kind of it because we have Maxon saying that he has a poor network so it's not really anything at my end right okay perfect okay so yeah we can go on then yeah and yes may the Lord you know give Maxon a good network Lord you please help him because he wants to be part of this class and so Lord you just assist him and guide him so that his network clears up Lord you do that for him yeah so you know just to clarify this further you know if someone could read out for us James 219 you know that's just the worst that he mentions before he gets into the Abraham example so if someone could just read out James 219 please can I read it Pastor yes uh thou believe us that there is one God thou doest well the devil also believe and from yeah so over here um the demons believe in the in God and and in his divinity to such an extent that it makes them tremble it scares them it frightens them to that extent they believe in God but that belief is an incomplete faith because that belief never led them to submit to the Lord it never led them to trust in the Lord and you know just let him be God and let them just be created beings know you see you see their faith they have great faith they have so much faith in God that they literally tremble but it's an incomplete faith because it doesn't express itself in submission it doesn't express itself in obedience on the other hand if you look at Abraham when the when the when the time came where he had to submit and obey he was ready because his faith was complete it was a genuine faith okay so you see that's the contrast and then in fact you know Hebrews 11 verse the 17 to 19 in fact go on to explain what kind of a faith this man had uh and I think that is important for us to look at yeah if someone could read out Hebrews 11 17 to 19 please by faith Abraham and he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son a proof it was said to Isaac shall you offspring we need he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking he did receive him back by faith Isaac invoked future blessing on Jacob and he saw okay so um um we have um you know Abraham being described over here in verse 17 Hebrews 11 17 he who had embraced the promises that day when God made him a promise under the night sky he just embraced that promise he accepted it he fully believed it he believed in the God who is making that promise and he believed that yes God will fulfill it it's true that in all these years I have not had a child I've grown old now but God says that my descendants are going to be so innumerable I will not even be able to count them I just choose to believe this he embraced the promises so this man who has embraced the promises is now getting ready to kill the very son through whom all these descendants are going to come so the level of his faith is such that this is the way he reasons it out in his mind you know that's what now verse 19 explains it says Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead so his reasoning was God made a promise God will not lie and so it's all right even if I sacrifice my son God is going to raise my dead son back to life because God has made a promise because God so clearly has said you know it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned so obviously descendants are not going to come from a dead dead boy right the boy has to come back to life and so his reasoning is so amazing you know he had not yet heard about the Lazarus story he had not yet heard about the widow's son being raised from the dead all these things would happen many centuries later this man as far as he as far as we know had never ever witnessed anyone rising from the dead but there he stands confidently next to the altar gets ready to kill his son because he believes he has embraced the promise and he knows that God will be faithful to his word and so he says no props I will sacrifice my son because God will raise him up from the dead because God will keep his promise and just God has said through Isaac you know my offspring will be reckoned you know so that is the level of faith that he had so that was genuine faith and now here when Paul is talking about genuine faith he's talking about an other aspect okay so the aspect that really comes out in the Abraham story is Abraham's love for God and Abraham's trust in God now over here Paul is talking about another aspect of genuine faith you know which he goes on to explain in verses 13 to 15 and yeah we have I think you did tell me how to pronounce your name once but then I don't remember but yeah man man geek girl is it or Joe man yeah if you know if you could tell me how to pronounce your name and then go ahead with your question please is my geek girl mean man geek fine yeah all right yeah go ahead with your question please thank you but um but as you were you were speaking about about Abraham's faith um that question but uh did Abraham not believe because he he was communing with God there was no one in between him and God because now we we have the Bible we have Holy Spirit but most people they don't really understand what they believe they don't really have communion with God so Abraham had personal relationship with God God will come visit him and speak to him and show him uh can that not have did that not affect the way he believed because because he had a relationship with God thank you uh I am sure that Abraham had a wonderful uh you know a relationship with God uh where he seemed to be so interested in the things of God and so in line with the heart of God where God says to himself you know before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah how can I withhold that information from him I need to share this with him so I think they really had a good relationship going where God felt obligated to tell this man about something which he's going to be doing so he actually comes to Abraham and says you know what these are my plans and he actually shares his divine plans with a mere human being because that human being was in such in so much in line with him and and there he had such a good relationship with his God but uh Abraham did not have all of the scriptures in front of him the the level of revelation which we have today he did not even have uh because you know we see that in the Old Testament only a partial revelation was given what we know today in the New Testament is much more a much fuller revelation has been given to us and also in at that time it was just God visiting Abraham every time Abraham reaches out to God God reaches out to him and comes to him and communes with him but he didn't have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit so actually Abraham was at a disadvantage we today can actually have a more intimate relationship with God than Abraham ever could have had in his day so because we literally have you know it's very very very in John you know where where Jesus says I and my father will come and I think it's probably either John 15 or John 17 you know Jesus says I and my father will come and make a home in you so we literally have them residing in us you know through the Spirit of God so we literally have the Spirit of God inside us and we have all of scripture you know literally speaking to us the Holy Spirit inspires the scripture and you know causes us to understand what is being said and so there's a deeper level of communication happening so Abraham didn't really have all of that but at his primitive level my goodness what faith that man had we on the other hand who have access to the scriptures you know that many words of God we have you know available to us and the Holy Spirit is available to enlighten all of those words to us and make it relevant to our present day situations so our level of intimacy with him with God must should be at a much higher level than what Abraham had you know we have we are at an advantage so yes so yes now come does that help would you would you know have would you have any follow-up questions thank you for that health okay yeah perfect yeah so we'll then I know get into verses 13 to 15 if someone could quickly read out that for us please let me read yes verse 13 to 15 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 you be consumed by another for you brethren have been called to liberty yeah yeah okay so now here in these verses you know Paul is saying the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command love your neighbor as yourself so you know he's telling you know you people please keep this commandment now we know all along for four chapters for four and a half chapters Paul has been saying don't follow the mosaic law anymore that is not how you gain salvation and so you know he's been telling them not to follow the mosaic law and now here he says the entire mosaic law can be fulfilled if you just keep one single commandment you know and that which is to love your neighbor and now he says keep it keep this commandment so what is Paul saying he's telling us to follow the mosaic law or he's saying don't follow the mosaic law you know so that is the question which gets raised but before we answer that you know let's look at what Jesus himself also said okay so John chapter 15 if someone could read out verses 9 to 12 John 15 verses 9 to 12 please John 15 9 to 12 he reads as the father has loved me so I have loved you now remain in my love if you keep my commands you will remain in my love just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love I have told you this so that my joy be in you and that your joy may be complete restore my command is this love each other as I have loved you so we have both Paul and Jesus clearly saying you believers must keep one commandment which commandment is that to love each other you know even as God has loved us so this is a command that we are being expected to keep but neither Paul nor Jesus is saying that salvation will come by keeping this commandment okay you're keeping this commandment for a different purpose okay in the Old Testament God told the Israelites please keep the mosaic law observe all the 613 mosaic laws which I have given you because if you do that then I will consider you acceptable in my eyes okay so that was for the Old Testament Old Covenant people but here once we have come into the New Covenant Jesus cancelled the Old Covenant now he says if you want to be acceptable you know to God keeping the mosaic law will not suffice because you anyway will not be able to keep it perfectly there is a solution you need to come and place your faith in Jesus Christ Jesus Christ will you know declare you as righteous and then on a day-to-day basis he will help you to actually become righteous okay so so that is the you know root to salvation which we follow the Judaizers basically were saying okay so you have the Judaizer root to salvation and you have Jesus root to salvation let's look at the two you know so the Judaizers root to salvation basically goes like this keep all the laws of Moses get circumcised no keep all of those laws if you do that you enter into step two which is you have now fulfilled the entire law so then once you fulfill the entire law then you come into step three where you know you have access to God you're able to enter into heaven you are now part of God's family so those are the three steps which the Judaizers were recommending on the other hand what is the root to salvation which Jesus Christ has laid down he says step one please believe in me that what I did on the cross is sufficient for your salvation if you place your faith in me and if you submit to me and accept me as your Lord and Savior I will declare you as righteous whatever I have done on the cross is sufficient and enough for your salvation you don't need to do anything additional so step one you've got to believe this and just submit to me and you know begin to live for me so that is step one when you do that you enter into step two which is you know you you gain access to God you know you become acceptable to him now once you have this salvation experience and you have now become acceptable to God then you enter into the third step you choose to continue remaining in his love you choose to continue enjoying the full extent of his love by you know by keeping this commandment of loving each other so that's that's the aspect which Jesus Christ you know brings out in John chapter 15 where he says the way I remain in my father's love always is by keeping his commandment so you don't keep the commandments of the Lord to gain salvation ah you know brother Charles if you could kind of mute yourself I don't know how to do that okay I'll need to figure this out later um but yeah you know the the the noise was kind of affecting yeah so so according to the Judaizers you gain salvation you earn salvation by keeping the mosaic law and they're completely wrong in that on the other hand what Jesus is saying and what Paul is saying is that once you have salvation one of the byproducts of the salvation is that you will be able to start loving each other and that will be a byproduct of your salvation so God is very very serious about us loving each other but you're not doing that to earn the salvation you're doing it because you have salvation so you better behave like a saved person and live in love with your fellow believers okay so let your faith be a genuine faith which shows up in your actions so if your faith is really genuine you will behave like a true believer and you will actually live in love with your fellow believers okay so the way you're behaving you're living with your fellow believers will clearly demonstrate whether or not your your faith first of all was genuine or not you know when you first made that commitment to the Lord okay so that's the that's the aspect which is being brought out over here so now because now that he's introduced this whole idea of how important it is for us to demonstrate the genuineness of our faith by living in love he goes on to elaborate on this whole idea of what exactly is living in love how do you do it what are the implications so the rest of the you know passage is going to be talking about living in love and the importance of that okay so up to now he's talked about the first portion which you know the first argument where he established that salvation is never ever going to come to you by keeping the mosaic law it's only going to come to you by faith so faith alone will lead to salvation he has established that now he's getting into part two part two what he's saying is now that your people are saved let's hope that the you know the the faith which you are expressing is genuine because if it is genuine it's definitely going to show up in the way you treat one another so right now if you're living you know in enmity with the other believers and you have all this hatred and jealousy and dissension inside you you need to start changing yourself kindly renew your mind kindly renew your attitude and start coming in line with scripture because you are now a saved person no longer should you be living the way the world the worldly people live because now you have become a child of God so now start living like a child of God so right now so now he starts giving instructions on how a saved person should be behaving okay so we will look at that when we come back from our break so at 10 o'clock if we all can just log back in once again you know we'll continue with the lesson thank you