SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Fear Driven Religion Versus Freedom

Jesus Plus Anything Loses Everything

The Slow Drift Into Self Righteousness

SPEAKER_01 0:20

All right, welcome back to day two of the Daily Blade. We are in Galatians chapter 6. We're going to pick it up in verse 12. We're going to get back more to the theological stuff that Paul is talking about. Paul says, It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised. Now, just in case you're late to the game here in the book of Galatians, Paul plants a church in Galatia. It starts with the gospel, people get saved, people are walking in the freedom of Christ. And then a group of religious people known as the Judaizers infiltrate the church and they begin to preach a false gospel. They begin to teach Jesus plus the obedience to the Old Testament law, especially circumcision, is a requirement for you to be saved. And that is not the gospel. And so Paul says to this, as he's wrapping up this letter, he says, It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. Okay, this is another dig at the Judaizers. Here's what Paul wants us to know that religion, for religion's sake, is rooted in fear and control and comparison. But what the gospel offers is a relationship with Jesus Christ that frees us from our sins, that cleanses us of all unrighteousness, and imputes us with the finished work of Christ and imputes us with his righteousness. And so where Christ rules and reigns, there is freedom, not fear and control. And Paul wants to point out that these religious leaders are arrogant. They want to make a good showing in the flesh. They want people to think we are so powerful because we are in charge that these quote new believers in Galatia have to do what we say in order that they be welcomed in. And it is a heresy. What they are teaching is a heresy. In regards to salvation, Jesus plus anything makes you lose everything. Because the reality is when Jesus pushed up on his nail-pierced feet and he says, It is finished, he did not say, It is almost finished, or I've gotten this thing started. And if you do your part, then you can be a part. That's not what he says. He says, For all who believe would receive the right to become children of God. And not only that, these religious leaders are hypocrites that they obsess over one part of the Old Testament law, which was which was circumcision, which was supposed to be a sign of a covenant with God, and they ignore all the other laws. This is kind of like the fat, overweight preacher who is a glutton, but he rails against alcohol all the time. Meanwhile, he is not being a good steward of his temple whatsoever, but he wants to scream at you about this one particular thing in the scriptures. You see, these religious leaders are only focused on the flesh. They're focused on their flesh, what they want, and they're focused on your flesh, what you were doing. Instead of being focused on Christ's flesh that was nailed to the cross, and when Jesus was nailed to the cross, our sin and our shame and our condemnation were nailed to the cross with him. And for anyone who would believe that when Jesus died on the cross, somehow that counted for me, that is what is required for salvation, period. End dot. And to add anything to that is anathema. Now let me give you a warning. If you're the kind of person that listens to the Daily Blade and you go to church every single week, here's the terrible thing about humanity. The longer you are a Christian, the longer you attend church, the more you are an insider, the easier it is for us, and I say us here, to drift in this kind of thought. We begin to think that we are better than other people. And if you begin to do that, if you begin to look down your nose at other people because of their activity, then it is a cancer to your faith, and we must war against it. May we always understand that it is by grace that we have been saved. May we never, ever, ever get over the gospel. I mean, Paul in other places is going to say that he is the chief of all sinners. One of the things that Paul never loses is he never loses or he never forgets what he has been saved from. And it was his understanding of God's lavish grace upon him that he was able to be a conduit of that grace to other people. So while it's easy for us now, 2,000 years later, to look back at the Judaizers and think, how could these religious idiots be so dumb? And yet, if we don't hold up the scriptures of the gospel to ourselves and look in the mirror, then we can become those very same kind of self-righteous, hypocritical church people today looking down our nose at other people. You cannot simultaneously look down your nose at others and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and the perfector of our faith.

Keep Your Eyes Fixed On Jesus

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Amen. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Before you go, if you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five star rating and review. Stay sharp.