What Separates You?

Galatians 1:15 “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,”

Galatians 2:12 “For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

The book of Galatians is a wonderful book of the Bible.

When preachers of the cross of Christ like the apostle Paul had gone into Galatia, they’d told the people there the most glorious liberating truth of all… which is that you can reconciled to, redeemed by, and know and please and enjoy God for yourself entirely through Jesus Christ!

It is that simple. Because all you need of God, all you need to know of God, all you need to do God’s will and live for God, everything God and all of God is found in God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

The Christian life, as in truly, comes out of HIS endless infinite reserves of power, wisdom, love, truth, grace, righteousness and mercy. If you don’t have, the Bible says ask him. If you need, the Bible says ask. Stop talking about your little “relationship” with God and start living it! We talk about relationship but live very religiously… and Paul says in Galatians… I had religion, THEN JESUS saved me… and that was revelation, not religion!

Everything of God, for God, to God, by God, in God… its all found in one place, in one man… the Lord Jesus Christ his Son. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, it only matters what the Son says, if it’s not spoken by him, then it’s just noise.

Why does it have to be this way? Through Jesus and Jesus alone? …Because the Bible says it pleased God the Father to do it that way! And the Bible says God the Father has appointed Jesus Christ the heir of all things. Not some things, not most things… the Bible teaches that God has put all things into the Son’s hands.

… Why? Because he’s the only one who can be trusted with all things. God gave Adam a little responsibility and privilege, and he fumbled it and brought all this upon humanity and creation. All the suffering and pain and harm and selfishness, corruption and greed, the envy, the darkness… that’s what happens when God gives anything into our hands… we drop the ball.

But enter Jesus Christ “But we see Jesus”. Where Adam sinned, Jesus Christ defeated Satan. And he defeated Satan when the odds were against him… when Adam sinned, he lived in a world where there was only good. You and I are Adam, we don’t come from a chimpanzee or a dust particle that became self aware… we all come from Adam, and bear his image, but the Bible says that though we have borne the image of the earthly, we can bear the image of the heavenly. Only Christ’s Spirit dwelling within you can make us little earthlings heavenly!

Where Adam sinned and fell in the flesh, and where you and I also, yet Jesus lived a sinless life in the flesh. Thus the only person whose flesh we can glory in is Christ, because we are all sinners and depraved in our flesh. I know you’re a pretty good person, everyone is, if you need to know how good people are, just ask them, but if we are honest for a second, we know we utterly fallen.

But God sent his Son. That’s where the saying “God send” comes from. And God has committed everything into Jesus Christ’s hands because he alone is worthy and can be trusted with all things. He put all judgment into the Son’s hands. He put life itself in his Son’s hands. “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself”

Life itself is found only and exclusively in Jesus Christ. You get all of God in Christ, or you have none of God in this world. Why settle for less.

If you don’t have Christ you have nothing. Yes you may seem to have plenty, but all you have you can easily be separated from. Riches. Women. Happiness. Job. Friends. They all can depart from you in seconds. “and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.” Make sure you have what cannot be taken away… Christ.

And so at Galatia, a city given unto sin and darkness, people had gotten saved and their lives transformed forever by the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ Jesus… and they’d received Christ into their hearts by faith. It’s not enough to know Christ died on a cross somewhere someplace sometime… you have to RECEIVE him for yourself. That’s what I pray for you, to know God for yourself, the power of his resurrection, and the abundant and eternal life which he freely gives us.

And today, we are utterly spoilt for choice in the book of Galatians, as there are so many wonderful things of God to bring forth from the glorious truths of this book… but I want to focus today on the word “separate”.

…And I would like to leave you with a simple thought which may be most profound as it is here in scripture, because all religions of the world get hung up on separation.

The word “separate” is found twice in the book of Galatians, one time when Paul is giving his salvation story and says God separated him… and the second time is when Paul says that Peter separated himself.

So in one verse Paul says God separated him, and in the other he says Peter separated himself. That’s it. There’s the truth that when you read the whole book of Galatians crystallizes into the most profound truth of the gospel.

… which is that what makes you truly separate in this world, and have something separate from this world, is not anything you do or don’t do… it’s God. What separates you is whether you have Jesus or not.

In Galatians, people were being divided… separated… over circumcised versus uncircumcised. And you might think that’s stupid. And you’re right, it is, and it was, and the whole book is centered on the stupidity of this separation. Paul’s saying, I know those experts cited Abaraham as their justification for this distinction, but just so you know, that’s not what Abraham’s circumcision was about or for, and this little division over circumcision is not from God, but from MAN.

Because you know what separates us?

Having Jesus Christ or not.

See, you can be as separate as you try to make yourself in what you do and don’t do. But without Christ, you’re not different from everyone or anyone else. Paul said all this stuff that got into the Galatian church was just worldliness… it is worldly to think your dos and don’ts is what makes you more acceptable to God or changes one thing about your sinful nature.

The only thing I care about for you is, yes it is important how you live, but do you have Christ… or not? If you don’t have Christ, you have nothing separate. And there is nothing separate about you despite what your little dividing distinctive line of superiority is.

People can see if you have Christ or not. They may not like Christ in you, and a decent amount won’t, but they see whether he’s there or not.

You know what will truly separate you?

It won’t be whether you’re baptized or not, tattooed or not, drinker or not, living in a monstery, pilgrimage to Mecca, Buddha’s noble eightfold path… whatever you can think of that makes you distinct… it doesn’t.

Did you know the Bible categorizes only two kinds of people, and they are separated by one thing, not skin colour, not language, not gender… JESUS CHRIST “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

Don’t let anyone corrupt your from this BIBLE truth. They will come for this truth, because it is the most liberating truth for the child of God. God has set you free in Christ Jesus.

See, in Galatians, Paul says GOD separated me. In Romans 1, he says separated unto the gospel of Christ. But also in Galatians, he recounts something that happened at Antioch where the apostle Peter separated himself because he was scared what other people would think of his “unsanctified” decisions to fellowship with uncircumcised brethren.

See, is your “separation” God… or is it just you separating yourself based on whatever you have decided makes you separate and thus elevated above everyone else?

If you read the book of Exodus, chapter 33, read these verses where Moses is praying to God

Exodus 33:15 “And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.”

Exodus 33:16 “For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.”

You know what separated Moses and the people that God brought out of Egypt?

God being with them! And in the Old Testament he dwelt in a tabernacle in the middle of the camp, and the wisdom of Solomon realized that this was just a picture because how could the Creator be put in a box somewhere, but God dwelling among the people was what made the Jews separate! It wasn’t their little customs and ordinances and laws, and even if they were good or had wisdom in and of themselves, if you do not have God they and you have nothing different. I hope you do not have all the trappings of religion, and yet without God “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”

Guess where God dwells now? Where he always planned to. Not in a holy place in a building where noone could even access except a high priest who himself was a sinner once a year… But rather, in the hearts of any and all who receive his Son! “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”

I hope you are a child of God. He dwelt in a tabernacle in the wilderness, but where he wanted to dwell is with you and in you!

The Bible says Jesus was the friend of sinners and yet separate from sinners. How did he manage that? Because he is God, he is from above, it is he who is separate, and thus whether we are separate is whether we have him or not… because he is not of this world, even though he entered this world to save us from it.

You want something truly separate? It’s Jesus Christ. If you do not have him, you have nothing separate from this world, no matter how deluded you are about how your special do’s and do not’s or whatever it is that you think makes you distinct sets you apart and separates you from others. I hope you have Christ. He is our salvation. HE is separate, everything and everyone else is more of the same old. He is our sanctification. He is our separation. It’s always Christ, it’s only Christ, praise the Lord.

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