The Only Thing That Counts
Text: Galatians 5:2-6, 6:11-18
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, UT
July 16, 2023
This is the final sermon in our series on Galatians. I’ll bet you never thought we would get here. Twelve sermons, with a thirteenth right now, on this letter from Paul to the Christians in Galatia.
It’s not a real warm letter. It’s kind of an edgy letter. Paul writes them because he is frustrated – angry might be a better word – that they have turned away from living by grace. Certain people have come in after Paul was there and convinced the believers in Galatia that they needed to keep all the Jewish laws and rites along with their faith in Christ. They needed Jesus plus something else. Jesus-plus whatever is always a twisting of the good news. Paul was adamant that in Christ we no longer live by the law but by the Spirit.
And as he comes to the end of this letter he says, “Mark my words” and “See with what large letters I am writing.” He wants them to get it! Isn’t that what we do when we want someone to get what we are saying? We text in all caps. We raise our voices. We say, “Are you listening to me?!” Paul wants them to hear him loud and clear.
There were people – missionaries, preachers, religious leaders - who came after Paul and were pressuring the men to be circumcised. They said that if you were a Gentile and came to faith, you had to go through the rite of circumcision in order to be included in the people of God. Paul was totally against this. He writes if you are circumcised then Christ is of no value. You are obligated to keep whole law. To do that is to try to make yourself right with God through the law and that is to fall away from grace.
He says the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
The only thing that counts. Not one of the things that count. Not one of the many important things. No, the only thing that counts. It doesn’t matter what else you do. The only thing that matters is faith. And faith expresses itself through love.
Some people have faith but it is merely a set of beliefs they hold in their mind. But it hasn’t penetrated their hearts. We need to have right belief. It’s important to be clear on what the message of Christian faith is. But if those beliefs don’t lead us to live in a way that honors our Lord then what good are they? We can say the Apostle’s Creed everyday but if our life doesn’t express the love of Christ what does it matter?
People who have all the right doctrine but no heart have a faith that is cold. There are churches that make sure people have all the right thinking but they lack love.
Jesus took on the Pharisees because they did lots of religious things but they were harsh toward people.
In our Bibles it reads “faith expresses itself through love” but literally the way Paul wrote it means “faith energized by love.” We love because we have faith that God is real, that he is alive, and that what we do for others matters. Love energizes our faith.
Some people hear this and get all caught up in debates about faith and works. If faith expresses itself through love then that is really about works and isn’t faith really our work?
True, in the book of James we read
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?
Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.[1]
Faith shows. It shows with our love. Love grows from faith. Good deeds grow from faith. Faith is lived. We can say we believe in the Lord but if the love isn’t there that belief is empty.
In one Southeast Asian language there is a phrase “to drink dry.” To drink dry means to drink coffee or tea without having something to eat along with it. If you have tea without a biscuit or muffin you “drink dry.” Likewise, to “come visiting dry” is to come to someone’s home without bringing a gift. To hear God’s Word to have faith and to not live that faith is to “hear dry.” Faith without love, without deeds of kindness, mercy, goodness, is to “believe dry.” It is to believe but have no life that shows faith.
True, we are saved by grace through faith. But faith and works aren’t against one another. Remember what was preached a few sermons ago: Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning.[2]
Those teachers who came in after Paul had convinced the Galatians that they needed to earn their place with God. So Paul writes, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. And as he ends his letter Paul again says, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.”[3]
What counts is that we are becoming different, new, restored. Becoming a new creation is the work of the Holy Spirit. A new nature begins to take over. We have new desires, new affections, new habits. A change is taking place in us. There is a spiritual transformation. A new creation is someone who has placed their faith in Christ and is allowing him to remake us.
This is not the only time Paul writes about being a new creation. In his letter we know as Second Corinthians, Paul also writes about this new creation.
“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation, everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.”
He doesn’t say if you are in Christ you might be a new creation. No, if you live for Christ you are a new creation.
“All this is from God…”
Did you get that? It’s all from God.
“…who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.[4]”
To be a new creation…
There was a businessman who was selling a warehouse property. The building had been empty for a year or two and needed serious repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed some of the windows, and thrown trash around the inside of the building. The businessman met with a buyer and assured him that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.
The buyer said, “Forget about the repairs. When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building. I want the site.”
And that is how it is with God. He wants the site and the permission to build. He wants our lives. He wants to build something new..
It is good to ask God to do this. It is good to pray in surrender each day and allow the Holy Spirit to have sway over us. It’s good to open the doors of our life to Jesus.
We try to improve our lives with a little effort here and a little there. God has something much bigger in mind. “The Son of God did not come to make good people better but to give life to the dead.”[5] His Holy Spirit is not about self-improvement. When we turn it over to God the old life leaves and the new creation begins to be built.
You say, “But I don’t always feel very new, Phil. Sometimes I feel recycled at best, but not new.” It isn’t instantaneous. They are building a new high school up the street from where we live. Tearing down the old and outdated one and putting up a brand new one. We are into our second year and it still has two years before the whole thing is complete.
As we allow the Lord full reign in our lives he makes us new creations. But the transformation happens throughout our lives. Keep seeking Jesus and trust the work that he is doing. Even that is to live by faith. And here we don’t have to rely on our feelings or our spiritual strategies, but only on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Really, the beginning place of faith, of new creation, of grace is the cross. Paul makes one of the strongest statements in all the New Testament in 6:14 when he says, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
People in Galatians were boasting about how religious they were, circumcision being one of the prime acts that proved that. Paul’s point in Galatians is that trusting in keeping religious ritual to be right with God is to trust ourselves.
Paul boasts in the cross of Christ. He doesn’t boast in his background and religious pedigree. Not in his credentials, portfolio, or spiritual knowledge. Not in his church membership or baptism or even having seen the risen Christ. Paul could have waved a resume that was long and impressive but he doesn’t. Paul boasts in the death of his Savior.
Because when we come to the cross you don’t bring anything but our sinful, messed up, broken self. We bring all that needs God’s mercy. We bring all that needs his forgiveness. We bring all that needs his cleansing power.
The cross shows us the serious of our sin, but also the breadth of grace because there is more grace in God than sin in us.[6] There is nothing in us that God’ grace cannot meet. We glory in the cross.
Paul ends this letter with: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.
After all Paul has written to the Galatians, after all his fiery words, his arguing, his pleading, his last word is grace. He gives a blessing of grace to the Christians in Galatia.
It is the free gift of God to us and it frees us from having to make ourselves right with God.
I will still go to church (one reason being I am your pastor and I have to show up) because that is where we worship God and remember who we are as his people. But going to church doesn’t make me right with God. No, I’m justified by his grace. And I belong to his church and actively participate in the church because of his grace.
I will still pray because by his grace God has opened up communication between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and me. But that doesn’t determine my relationship with him. It nurtures it but it doesn’t start or end it. If I don’t pray for forget to pray or can’t pray it is his grace that carries me.
I will still read the Bible and learn it because that is where I find out who God is, how he works, and how I am to relate to him. But how much or how little I do that isn’t what determines my status with the Lord. I am a child of God by his grace.
I will pastor as long as God has me be a pastor. But there was a period I did not pastor anywhere. And if he calls me away from being a pastor again or retirement becomes a reality I don’t have to fret that I’m not doing enough for God because it is what he has done for me by his grace that matters.
I will love God, love others, and do acts of love because faith is energized through love. But it isn’t my deeds of love that will earn my way with God. It’s the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that gives me favor with him.
You know what, I will still fail at times. I hope I feel the sorrow to turn around and come back to God and will know that my standing with my Father is OK because there is forgiveness with him. And there is forgiveness because of his grace.
This grace is the gift of God to every believer. We didn’t do anything to get it.
That’s what Paul writes to the Galatians.
A couple of pastors were on their way to Atlanta for a large Christian gathering. One of them had never been in the south before. They stayed overnight in a motel and then stopped at a nearby restaurant for breakfast the next morning. The pastor who had never been in the south ordered two eggs, hashbrowns, toast and bacon. When their food came he saw what he ordered but also this white, mushy looking stuff on his plate. When the waitress came by again to check on them he asked her what it was. “Grits,” she replied.
“Ma’m, I didn’t order this and I’m not paying for it.”
The woman said, “Sir, down here you don’t order it and you don’t pay for it, you just get it.”[7] And such is God’s grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. Didn’t pay for it. Certainly don’t earn it.
That’s what Paul wanted the Galatians to know. That’s what we have been hearing these past three months. And so may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with our spirits, brothers and sisters. Amen.
Prayer: Lord, we thank you for the book of Galatians and that it is still speaking to Christians 2,000 years after it was first written and read. Whatever has been preached, whatever has been heard, whatever has been stirred in hearts continue to bless it so that we become new creations. Give us a living faith that shows itself through love. Lord, we praise you for your grace. Amen.
[1] James 2:12-17
[2] Quote from Dallas Willard
[3] 6:15
[4] 2 Corinthians 5:17-19
[5] Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, p.570
[6] I found this quote from George Hunsinger, professor of systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. I can’t locate where I found it.
[7] Found at https://bible.org/illustration/you-just-get-it