KEEPING STEP WITH THE SPIRIT (14)
Scripture: Galatians 5:16-25
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Keeping Step with the Spirit (14)
Series: Galatians
Robert Dawson
Galatians 5:16-25
Back on August 23, 1973, Jan Erik Olsson, who was out of prison on parole, attempted to hold up a bank in Stockholm Sweden. Olsson took four people hostage which kicked off a six-day standoff between Olsson and the police. At one point, Olsson called Sweden's Prime Minister to inform him that he would kill the hostages. During that call, he put one of the hostages, Kristin Enmark, on the phone. She told the Prime Minister, ''I am very disappointed in you...I think you are sitting here playing with our lives.''
Despite Olsson's threats to kill her, Enmark, decided she felt safer with the bank-robber than she did with the police. She wasn't the only one. Some of the other hostages actually resisted rescue attempts and later refused to testify against their captor and even raised money for his defense! Bonkers!!!
Now, whenever you hear of a hostage who identifies more with their captors than their rescuers, their condition is referred to as the Stockholm syndrome.
The Galatian believers were experiencing something of a spiritual Stockholm syndrome. They identified more with what they had been set free from than what they had been freed to.
Christ had freed them from the law as a means of justification. That is something that only comes as a result of God's grace. It comes through faith in Christ alone.
Christ had also freed them from the law as a means of sanctification. Our journey to Christlikeness is not something that we can achieve through solely through our own effort.
We have seen that the law has a place in God's plan for salvation and sanctification, but it was never intended to be the power, means or motivation by which either were achieved. Two thoughts to be mindful of...
We are powerless to obtain salvation on our own.
We are powerless to achieve spiritual growth on our own.
The questions the Galatians had, what they could not reconcile in their ...
Series: Galatians
Robert Dawson
Galatians 5:16-25
Back on August 23, 1973, Jan Erik Olsson, who was out of prison on parole, attempted to hold up a bank in Stockholm Sweden. Olsson took four people hostage which kicked off a six-day standoff between Olsson and the police. At one point, Olsson called Sweden's Prime Minister to inform him that he would kill the hostages. During that call, he put one of the hostages, Kristin Enmark, on the phone. She told the Prime Minister, ''I am very disappointed in you...I think you are sitting here playing with our lives.''
Despite Olsson's threats to kill her, Enmark, decided she felt safer with the bank-robber than she did with the police. She wasn't the only one. Some of the other hostages actually resisted rescue attempts and later refused to testify against their captor and even raised money for his defense! Bonkers!!!
Now, whenever you hear of a hostage who identifies more with their captors than their rescuers, their condition is referred to as the Stockholm syndrome.
The Galatian believers were experiencing something of a spiritual Stockholm syndrome. They identified more with what they had been set free from than what they had been freed to.
Christ had freed them from the law as a means of justification. That is something that only comes as a result of God's grace. It comes through faith in Christ alone.
Christ had also freed them from the law as a means of sanctification. Our journey to Christlikeness is not something that we can achieve through solely through our own effort.
We have seen that the law has a place in God's plan for salvation and sanctification, but it was never intended to be the power, means or motivation by which either were achieved. Two thoughts to be mindful of...
We are powerless to obtain salvation on our own.
We are powerless to achieve spiritual growth on our own.
The questions the Galatians had, what they could not reconcile in their ...
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