The worst thing about slavery is that the slaves eventually get to like it. – Aristotle

There are an estimated 50 million people living in modern slavery worldwide. This includes various forms of exploitation like forced labor, human trafficking, and forced marriage. In the United States, there are an estimated 300,000+ modern-day slaves. 

We’re beginning a new study of the New Testament book of Galatians this Sunday. The main subjects of Galatians is slavery but it’s not slavery as we usually think of it – it’s much worse, it’s spiritual slavery. In Galatians Paul goes nose to nose with the heresy of “I hope so” religion. You probably know those who struggle with it. Maybe it’s you. You hope you’re going to heaven. You hope God will forgive you. You’re not sure…you just “hope so.” 

Maybe you’ve imagined a day of judgment that goes something like this. You’re standing outside the gates of heaven in a really long line. You’re slowly moving forward, one step at a time. As you get closer, you start to sweat and wonder, “Am I going to get in? Will I make it? Is God going to use a giant TV screen to show every wrong thing I’ve ever done? Will my every sin be exposed?”

One man shared that when he was a little kid, his Sunday school teacher taught him that God was sitting in heaven, writing down every bad thing he did. She actually made her class sing a song every week that went, “My Lord is writing all the time. Writing, writing, writing all the time.” This man shared, “It scared me. I just thought, ‘I’m never going to make it to heaven. My list is getting longer and longer.’”

Galatians shares that though God knows every sin ever committed, He provided the way in His own Son so every sin was paid for, and anyone could be forgiven. None of us can do anything to go to heaven. It’s already been done. The big religious lie is that you will never go to heaven unless you do this or do that and everything in between. 

Recently, I stumbled on the testimony of professional football player, Carson Wentz, from 2017. At the time he was a quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles (currently, he’s a quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs). Wentz called out the big lie of works “Christianity” or religion. In the interview he explained one “lie” about the Christian faith that Satan wants people to believe while he was sharing his own gospel experience. Wentz, along with Eagles tight end, Trey Burton and offensive lineman, Stefen Wisniewski, were being interviewed by Associated Press sportswriter, Rob Maaddi.  

Wentz grew up in a mainline church but is now a non-denominational Christian. During the interview he was asked to explain where he currently is in his faith. He talked about the lie that a lot of people believe and one that he admitted falling into the trap of while he was growing up. He said:

I think talking specifically about that and being saved by works is obviously a lie, but it’s a lie that a lot of people believe…I know for me as a man, even when I was a kid, with sports and anything I did, I was going to work my tail off to earn what I got. That’s how I was wired, that’s how the world kind of instills this value, so to speak, is work, work, work, and earn it. And that’s kind of what I thought. I’d pray, I’d go to church, I’d do this and that, and I’m like that’s great, I’m a good person, I did the right and so I’m going to be saved naturally. That’s what I thought. That’s the lie that the devil wants you to believe.

Wentz shared the Bible verse that opened his eyes to what salvation truly is and transformed his life: Ephesians 2:8-10, ‘For it is by Grace that you have been saved through faith — and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do go works which God prepared in advance for us to do.’ So, when I learned about this grace and learned about how my view of Christianity was really just flipped on it’s head, because you see, Christianity is the only religion in the world that you can’t earn Heaven, you can’t earn an afterlife, you can’t earn reincarnation or whatever it is that other people believe. Christianity says it’s done; Jesus already did it. He took it all for you and this is what Paul is saying here in Ephesians. He’s saying it’s by grace alone you’ve been saved, not by works so that no one can boast. I mean, he can’t lay it out much clearer.

In Galatians, Paul is writing to believers who’d embraced the gospel and trusted God’s grace but now were returning to the slavery religion of good works. It’s why Galatians is called “a letter of rebuke.” After his customary greeting, which is almost identical in all his letters, the very first thing Paul writes is: I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel… (Galatians 1:6). 

We have an enemy! Satan is the great deceiver. He’d convinced Christ-followers in Galatia Christ’s cross wasn’t enough. Those early Christians were abandoning the “grace of Christ” and embracing something other than the free gift of Jesus’ perfect righteousness as the foundation for salvation.

Apparently, they were telling these new converts that “true” Christians submit to circumcision, taking upon themselves the weight of the Mosaic law in addition to faith in Christ. It was Jesus +. These religious liars were known as “Judaizers” because they imposed the Jewish law and practices (circumcision, kosher laws, and so on) on non-Jewish believers.

Why these Gentile Christians listened to them is hard to understand. Maybe it’s because good works appeal to our pride but you can’t be saved without the humility of spiritual hopelessness. 

Seeing the threat this lie posed to the gospel, Paul wrote Galatians to counter this heresy defending God’s truth. Galatians is the most passionate of Paul’s letters, so deadly was this evil error that needed refuting.

2,000 years later little has changed. Many teach that God’s grace isn’t enough, that it’s the cross plus ______. They teach you must do something if you want to be forgiven and go to heaven. It was a lie then and it’s a lie today. Please read Galatians for yourself and join us during the coming weeks as we work through this book so that we can be Set free to Live free.