A Declaration of Freedom – Liberated by Faith: A Study of Galatians – Part 1 – Dr. Charles Stanley

Are you trusting in Jesus or your good works? By examining Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Dr. Stanley gives us a biblical understanding of how we can gain spiritual freedom through God’s grace. His first message, “A Declaration of Freedom,” brings listeners through Galatians 1:1-5.

Paul reintroduces himself by affirming his divine apostleship. He then reminds his Galatian brethren that the redemptive act of Jesus Christ freed them—once and for all—from their bondage of sin and delivered them from the evils of the world.

This message is part of the series “Liberated by Faith: A Study of Galatians”

For more messages from Charles Stanley, including this week’s broadcast, go to www.intouch.org/watch

[Music] with a message from God’s word here’s Charles Stanley if you’ll turn to Galatians chapter 1 and what I want to do for this evening in just for a little moment is to give you a little background of what’s Happening Here and what is it that 2,000 years ago motivated Paul to write a letter that is just as applicable to us today maybe even more so in some ways than it was 2000 years ago so let’s read those first five verses together which is sort of the introduction to the whole book Paul an apostle not of men neither

by man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead and all the Brethren which are with me under the churches of galatia Grace be to you and peace from God the father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins that he might Deliver Us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our father or the will of God our Father to whom be glory forever and ever amen now I want you to turn to uh Luke 4 for just a moment there’s a verse here I want us to look

at Luke chapter 4 you recall that uh Jesus stood up in the temple went there the Sabbath day and he stood up for to read and the Bible says in verse 17 there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah and when he opened the book he found the place where it was written now thisen listen to what Jesus said Jesus said the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor he had sent me to heal the brokenhearted to preach Deliverance to the captives the recovering of sight to

the blind to set at Liberty them that are bruised to preach the acceptable year of the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to liberate mankind to free them to free them from their bondage of Sin from their captivity of sin their captivity of disease their captivity of Sorrows their captivity of heartaches Jesus Christ came as man’s Liberator he came to free Mankind and when you read that passage there is no question as to why Jesus came and you see it is no accident that Jesus turned to that particular passage

of scripture and read that he came to free men now listen he came into a society that was in absolute bondage the Pharisees were in bondage they said you can only walk so far on the Sabbath even if the ox gets in the ditch that’s too bad you can only eat a certain type of food you can only dress a certain way you can only talk a certain way they had everybody in religious bondage now here were people who believed in Jehovah God but because of the rituals and the laws that were added to what God intended they were a nation

of people in absolute religious bondage now it would be great to say that when Jesus Christ went to the Cross he took care of all of men’s bondage but I want to tell you something no book in the Bible could be more applicable than the book of Galatians to the bondage in which we’re in you can be a believer and be in all kinds of bondage because you see people are in all kinds of bondage there are people who are in bondage to habits habits of their own making there are people who are in bondage to the opinion of others

most of what governs what they do and how they do it and where they go and how they dress and what they say is the opinion of other people there are many many areas and aspects of bondage but one of the areas of bondage is religious bondage I mean you can go to church and get in bondage and there are many people today who are in as deep intrinsic bondage today as they were in the day in which Jesus said I’ve come to deliver men I’ve come to set them free I’ve come to liberate this whole generation but

the people today in bondage and the real truth is some of you in bondage you’re in terrible bondage and I’m going to tell you I’ve been there I know what it means to be saved and preaching the gospel but to feel the bondage of something in my life I did not know how to break out of and you see sometimes we’re we’re in bondage and don’t even realize it and sometime when we do realize that something is not right we can’t quite put our finger on it but even after we put our finger on it we

say well now H how do we break this I I read the Bible I pray I go to church I give I do all these things but I still feel bound up by something let me tell you something friend with all of my heart I want you to listen God doesn’t want you walking on eggshells he doesn’t want you pulling the chains by behind you he wants you free free to become the total person he wants you to be free to love him free to worship Him free to adore him free to praise him free to be everything he created you to be and the whole impact

of what Paul is saying in these six chapters of Galatians is that Jesus Christ came to make you a free man and as we go through these chapters you’re going to discover some things you’re going to discover that you are in bondage the things that if anybody else had told you you’d say no way that’s why the spirit of God must do the convicting and you see once God begins to free you in your spirit in your attitude about yourself and your attitude about other people and your attitude toward God and

your attitude about what you think he expects of you in your attitude to what you expect for yourself you’re going to see something really begin to happen in your life and I believe what uh Martin Luther said about this Martin Luther who was the real um Spirit of the Reformation said the book of Galatians is the magnar it is the great Charter of religious freedom and through the freedom that he found in Reading uh these chapters of the word of God it started a whole Reformation that is the whole Christian

world was rocked from one into the other when men began to break out and to Slough off all of these rituals and all of the demands and all of the laws of the church to say what does God say and he found out that God says that a man is created free look if you will in Galatians chapter 5 because the first verse of this chapter is the whole theme of what he’s saying he says verse one of chapter 5 Stand Fast stand silent be entrenched Stand Fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free that is

Jesus Christ has made every single believer free the problem is we have not accepted his freedom we’re not experiencing his Liberty we’re not enjoying being out of prison and you see you can meet once you discover what spiritual freedom is like and you meet another believer who is not free you can spot it in a minute you can see their smile on their face but you can see the chains wrapped around their heart you can feel the uptightness the bondage of of their Spirit God wants us to be free he wants us to be liberated to be

everything he intended us to be and every single one of us who’s been born again has been born again as free creatures in Christ Jesus and what he says all through this book is simply God wants you free and he’ll make you free if you’ll follow his word now listen here’s the problem we swing from one to the other and all of us have probably to some degree been on this side we’ve said well I’m going to do what God says do and that is we try with all the effort we know how to obey the Lord to be strict in our

obedience to him we want to live up to what Jesus Christ said in The Sermon on the Mount we want to keep all of the Ten Commandments all these things that people expect upon us and so we we we try to do that all of us to some degree have tried that and after a while we come to this terrible feeling to think man I’ve been trying for years and the real truth is and I’ll tell you it’s a shock when you realize that you’ve been trying to be good and trying to live up to these expectations and to obey God

for 30 40 years and you realize it’s not working the truth is I’m no better than I used to be I mean you know if the real truth were known that is if nobody else knew and you think all kinds of things so here’s what happens to a lot of people who start out right in the Christian faith they try nobody instructs them properly so they try they’re going to read the Bible they’re going to pray they’re going to trust the Lord to help them over Temptation meet their needs and all these things and

something comes along they have one failure here another failure over here defeat over here another defeat over here and after a while they say there’s something wrong it’s not working and what happens is they feel more and more guilty so here’s what they do you know when you start out and you’re not making it you you you up your Tempo just a little bit and you don’t make it you feel more guilty then you up your speed and you feel more guilty and you try a little bit harder and you feel more

guilty so that you finally come to the place you think man this thing’s not working I’m getting more and more guilt I’m not getting anywhere God forget the whole mess and what happens they swing to the other side and they say well here’s what I believe I believe that once Jesus Christ saves you man you’re free and I saw one of my dearest friends in the minister do this he became so disenchanted because he couldn’t live up to the expectations he thought God had on him somebody came along and said man

you don’t have to do that you can do anything you please after you become a Christian because you’re free so they finally convinced him he could do anything he pleased he could drank he could read stuff that he shouldn’t be reading before long he swung all the way to the other side so he swung from legalism to Absolute license legalism says you can’t do anything right and license says you can’t do anything wrong and so that’s what we have we’ve got a whole generation of people just like that

today we’ve got churches full of folks who say if a woman wears makeup man she’s had it somebody else says you not only can wear makeup you you can dress any way you please doesn’t make any difference you’re free no laws no restrictions total license and what they’re really saying is I want the privilege to do what I please any way I please under the blessing of God you’ve got two extremes now God doesn’t want us living in either one of those extremes why you just do any old thing you please because you’re

saved one of God’s children nor does he want us you see one’s as bad as the other neither one represents Jesus Christ neither one is indicative of the Christian Life both of them are forms of bondage one becomes bondage back to old habits and sin and one is bondaged to a religious legalism I must not do this and I must do that either one is just about as bad as the other now I want to just look through here because here’s what I want to show you the solution to all that’s right here in this book and

let’s just look through this uh book for just a moment let me just mention several verses because all through here we we find uh here he talking about freedom in verse four he says that Christ gave himself for us that he might Deliver us from our present evil world that is to free us and to liberate Us in the first chapter verse 6 he says I Marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ that is here they are retreating from their freedom and going back to the old way again then in chapter 2: 20

here’s the whole key to Freedom Paul says I found the key to Freedom what’s the key to Freedom the key to Freedom is that I can’t do any better I can’t improve myself I’ve tried I’ve tried I’ve tried but I discovered that I’ve been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ lives in me the life which I now live I live with the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me and once a man is able to grasp the True full meaning of verse 20 you begin to understand how

to live totally free in him then in chapter two uh we could just go on down through many verses here he talks about uh the key to Freedom he talks about failing from our freedom he talks about being born free in chapter 5 there he talks about the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus in the 13th verse he talks about our call to freedom for Brethren you’ve been called unto Liberty only use not your Liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another he says now you’ve been called to Freedom

he says but listen if you misuse your freedom what he says you’re over here on the in the area of license in bondage to legalism or license to do as you please he says neither one of those is correct all through here chapter after chapter we’ll see him talking about freedom and liberty so Paul as he traveled on his missionary Journeys establish these churches up in galatia and uh he taught them the truth of the word and you can imagine him uh meeting with a few people instructing them bringing them to a

saving knowledge of Jesus Christ the next missionary journey around he goes by and sees them again and then something happens down in Jerusalem uh the Pharisees who were professing faith in Jesus Christ they heard what Paul was doing they heard that Paul was offering the gospel to Gentiles and saying to them all you have to do is receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior by faith and you can be saved now because they were strict in their religious uh beliefs and because they practiced all kinds of uh religious ceremonies they believed in

the right of circumcision and that was absolutely essential in order to complete salvation so what they do they just go up to the churches of galatia and they say look we hear that Paul old Saul of Tarsus has been up here telling you that you can be saved all you have to do is to express faith in Jesus Christ and that is not so if you are going to be saved you have got to undergo the exercise of of circumcision or you can’t be saved what they were doing is this they were adding law to God’s grace adding law to God’s grace a

legalism a system of ceremony all kinds of things they wanted to add to Grace So when Paul writes this letter this isn’t one of those love letters like Philippians this is a very tense letter because he realizes that uh there’s a war going on in those churches and that is that there are judaizers who are there who are trying to disrupt the grace of God who are trying to add to the grace of God and saying no you cannot be saved unless you add law to Grace if you don’t add law to Grace then you’ll never be saved because it isn’t

all that simple well when Paul heard about that he was probably at Corinth when he wrote uh these six chapters in of this book and he wrote this in order to remind them of the freedom that they had in Christ well they were so vicious and so hostile when Paul writes this letter he spends part of his time defending his apostleship so some of the parts of this you will see here is Paul defending his apostleship here is Paul explaining over and over and over again why you don’t have to add anything to Grace let me ask

you this what did you add to your faith in Jesus Christ to be saved how many of you added church membership well you can go to some Churches and you have to add that how many of you added baptism you can go to some Churches and if you don’t add baptism you’re not saved you see it is amazing what man has added to the grace of God and Paul says he says do not frustrate the grace of God by adding to it what does not belong and when uh Martin Luther saw that that the cell of indulgences and going through all this ritual and all

the rest of it had nothing to do with salvation I’m here to tell you it started a war in the whole religious world and you see you and I can look back and think how in the world could they have believed that all of that was necessary to salv ation baptism and and uh communion and all of these things were essential to Salvation how could they believe that from the Bible is so clear now what you and I have to ask is this listen we have to ask ourselves the question could we be blind to truth is God trying to say something to us that

we have either been unwilling to accept or afraid to accept are we Bound by tradition have we parameters around us that we dare not break out of is there a freedom and a liberty in the spiritual life that we’ve never tasted of you said no are you up to something no I’m not up to a thing I just want you to think about your life I want you to think about what Jesus Christ has for us I’m simply saying that for Generations men have been bound in blindness and tradition steeped in Tradition and because they were listen

and this can happen to us we get comfortable in our tradition we get comfortable in our ruts and if somebody comes along and pushes us out we are so comfortable in our rut we become very fearful and what I want you to do is ask the Lord through this series to liberate you free you and to show you if there’s any area of your life in bondage and if in your thinking you’re in bondage if you have limited God’s work in your life because you are afraid to believe the the whole word of God now I want to tell

you something listen God will not get you out of balance I’m not talking about getting off on tangents there are no tangents with God God keeps his people perfectly and beautiful balanc you know how I know that because Jesus was he never caused any confusion Jesus was perfectly balanced and I believe there is a freedom and a liberty for God’s people in beautiful exciting re rejoicing happy contenting joyful balance like we’ve never known before but if we’re going to receive that and to accept that we have to ask

the Lord to show us if we abound so would you just do yourself a big favor as we go through this as you pray each day would you ask the lord lord show me if there’s an area of my life in bondage show me if my thinking has me Bound in some way and I believe as you do that you’ll find out that there may be some something there that you’ve never thought about so look at let’s look at these first three verses and I want to deal with the fourth verse primarily here he says Paul an apostle that is one who has been

sent by another with a certain commission who has the credentials of the one who sent him so that doesn’t mean that Paul was just another speaker and he begins by saying Paul Apostle because you see he must defend himself to these Believers and they are upset the people in the churches in galatia they’re in confusion because these judaizers have come up and said you can’t believe Paul they attacked him as a person and they attacked his theology now listen Paul’s response to that is this I don’t mind you attacking my

person but if you attacked my credentials which is an apostle of Jesus Christ then you are attacking the gospel I preach and I going to tell you you have no right to attack the gospel so he begins by saying Paul one who is sent by the ambassador of ambassadors who Bears the credentials of the Son of God himself and notice what he said an apostle not of men he said men didn’t make me an apostle neither by man I’m not going in the behalf of men he says but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead which is

his way of putting emphasis to who he is he says I’m an apostle of Jesus Christ he said I I shared my faith with you on those missionary Journeys he said I was sent by Jesus Christ I gave you the message of Jesus J Christ and he says what I’m writing in this letter is the message of Jesus Christ to you he says in verse two and all the Brethren which are with me and sometimes if you recall Paul had a group of people who traveled along with him sometimes uh and that could refer to the people who were in

coren with him when he wrote this particular book he says and all the Brethren which are with me under the churches of galatia and here’s what he may have been saying here not only do I believe what I have written but all the folks here with me this letter is from all of us to all of you who are members of the churches in galatia he says Grace be to you and peace from God the father and from our Lord Jesus Christ now in many other letters that Paul writes he has a beautiful salutation in commending them on different things but in this

letter there’s no Commendation this letter is not one of those sweet words of commendation about how great you are we’ve heard about your faith and all this he doesn’t say that he says Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ not by man nor through men he says but by but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead he says to you churches that are there in galatia from we Brethren here he says grace and mercy peace be unto you and then he hit some coal right with the major problem and the problem is their

attitude and their whole change of spirit about Jesus Christ so verse four is the key look he says Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins that he might Deliver Us from this present evil world according to the the will of God and our father now let’s look at that verse a moment he says that Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins that he might Deliver Us from this present evil world now that one phrase that one verse verse four here is the heart of the Gospel that Jesus Christ gave himself arist tense once and for all at the cross the

Bible says he gave himself but I want you to see something he says that he gave what himself Jesus Christ voluntarily the Bible says that God so loved the world what did he do he sent his only begotten son and he’s saying of Jesus that Jesus voluntarily gave himself that is he voluntarily came to lay down his life and suffered the sacrificial death on the tree on the cross the atoning death in order that he may do something for us and in essence what he’s saying is that he May Deliver Us liberate us free us break the bonds

take away the bondage open the doors of the prison so that you and I could become what God wants us to be and look how he said it he said he gave himself once and for all for our sins he says he gave himself for our sins now let me ask you a question if you are still bearing any sin once you’ve been saved what you are saying is that what Jesus Christ did at the cross was inadequate for you he says he gave himself now listen he didn’t give himself just for the sins of the world but what he’s saying here is that

he gave himself for your sins your sins your sins your sins your sins your sins my sins he gave himself voluntarily for the personal sin of everybody who’s ever lived and ever will live he gave himself for our sins listen didn’t say he gave himself to make you better he didn’t give give himself to make you happy he gave himself what happened at golgatha was that Jesus Christ voluntarily laid down himself and he paid the penalty for all of your sin past present future now listen if he didn’t I’m not

free if all sin wasn’t nailed to the cross I’m not free if he just took care of my past what about my pres I listen no man is free if he’s bearing sin he said he came to do what to lay down his life to suffer sacrificially vicariously for your sin and my sin that we may be freed from its penalty and its power in our life and no man who does not understand who or who has not accepted the total pardon and the complete Freedom that Jesus Christ gives he’s not free some of you sitting right here you’re not free because you keep

condemning yourself of the past and as long as you look back in the past and say oh I know that God’s forgiven me but listen if he nailed it to the tree what are you doing handling it if he has forgiven you what are you doing bringing it up again he says he laid down his life listen there’s nothing you can do to make your old self any better how many of you are better than you used to be 10 years ago there was a time in my life when I looked at my life and I thought now Lord I don’t really have much going for me so

and this this is the honest truth I said Lord I don’t really have much going for me so I really want to give you everything I can give you and I want you to have something that you can really use so I decided how I would improve different areas of my life man I mean I set goals I know all about goal set I set goals and I worked at this and I had this going and that going and all these things that I was improving my knowledge of it here and my experience over here and all of these things going and you know after years of that

when I came to the realization that all of my selfimprovement was only getting me deeper and deeper and deeper in the bondage because I was still failing oh I was improving a lot of things on the surface but old Charles Stan was still the same I mean he hadn’t changed a bit and I thought Lord the only thing I’m doing is I’m just I’m just putting plastic on poison and somehow he’s got to be dealt with on the inside and what I was doing is just caking it up on the outside look looking better maybe sounding better but

not a bit better and that’s what the world does most of the world’s seminars deal with plastic layers they just add one here and add one there and add one over here trying to make us better and the truth is we’ll never be any better until Jesus Christ deals with self and liberates me from old self when I’m liberated from old Charles stand praise God then I know what freedom is like but as long as I kept trying to improve myself trying to Merit up and and trying to do better and just about the time I’d

get something straighten it over here something else will break down over here my life was like an old beat up car you get this part this part fixed and the other part breaks down and you take care of that and something else breaks down same old thing over because you see you can’t improve yourself he says he came to liberate you free you the Liberty which we have in Christ Jesus and he says the first step to your freedom listen the first step to your freedom is the price Jesus Christ paid at Calvary he died for your

sins that means you don’t have to accept any more chains any more shackles and any more bondage according to God’s word now listen he says that he might Deliver us that means to pluck us out listen that he might Deliver Us again arist he’s taking us out once and for all saved one time because Jesus died One Time One atonement one Deliverance to pluck us out of this present evil world now let me tell you what that means that doesn’t mean that he came to save us and just take us on home to heaven and get us out of our environment

but the believer who lives he says we’re to live in the world but we’re not to be what of the world that is will not to take on the character of the world you line up to all the folks in your in your office where you work all the students in your class and say all all you folks line up here want all of you to talk for five minutes and let’s see if I can spot the Believers brother I believe you can spot a lot of them but a lot of them are so wishy was you they just live in the gray area he says that he came to

deliver you and me from this present evil World which means in this society that is in total opposition to God that will never agree to God that will never improve and never get any better and you see if you’re not careful as a Christian you say man I might as well give it up the world’s not going to get any better that’s exactly right do you need some evidence of that not really this whole world’s not going to improve because it is run by one who hates God and who has every one of us on his hit list that’s the devil how do you

think he’s going to improve this world he’s not going to improve the world I tell you what going to do he’s going to trick a lot of folks because there will be enough social scientific mechanical physical improvements and people say man things are getting better what things and until spiritual things are better it’s going to get worse so the world’s going to get worse and worse and worse we know that ultimately from God’s point of view we have already been taken that because he says our names have been

written in the Lamb’s Book of Life he says we have a new citizenship we are just simply passing through we are pilgrims down here and he says he’s simply given us a little foresight into what we’re going to have he says Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us we’re just down here temporarily but I want to tell you something if you allow the world to clothe you in its attitude clothe you in its habits clothe you in its actions and my friend and you’re giving a very poor witness of what Jesus Christ is like because he