Freedom: Galatians #3 Don t Be an Idiot Gal. 3:1-9 Dr. Matt Cassidy 1/18/2015

Transcription

1 Freedom: Galatians #3 Don t Be an Idiot Gal. 3:1-9 Dr. Matt Cassidy 1/18/2015 Gal. 3:1 You foolish Christians! Look at you. Did someone cast a spell on you? Let me ask you something a simple question. Did you receive the Spirit of God by working, by trying, by doing, or did you receive the Spirit of God by hearing and then believing? Are you so foolish that what you began in the Spirit, are you going to try to perfect this in the flesh? Really? Did you receive the Spirit of God did God work miracles in your church and amongst you because you were working, trying, doing or was it because you heard and then you believed? Boom! Good morning to you. That is a shocking way to start a chapter, don t you think? I think the feeling you are supposed to have is what Paul is trying to get us to this jolt. We are in Galatians 3:1 as we work our way through this great book. I want you to hear that there is a great deal of agitation but there is also a considerable amount of affection in Paul. Have you ever seen boxers or cage fighters when sometimes the bell rings and they go racing across the ring and start throwing punches. The other fighter is looking up going What? That is how Paul is approaching this chapter. We will look at nine verses today; 3:1-9. I want you to see how affectionate and confrontational Paul is. A modern translation reads: Galatians 3:1 You dear idiots. You dear, dear idiots. The secret of spiritual power is right under your noses. The very way you became Christians is the way you re going to go on to incredible freedom. And look at you. You re suffering for nothing. O you dear idiots. Stand in Him, in Him alone, gloriously complete. [Phillips] This is an amazing day. Do you want to change your life? This is the day we find out how the Spirit of God works in our lives. This is how we figure out how so many people, since the history of Christendom, take truths found in the Bible and then they run to bad places. Today we will find out how not to be an idiot, how not to be a foolish Galatian, how not to be a foolish Christian. As a church, we are trying to get the grace of God through the power of the gospel not just in salvation but also in every aspect of our personality, our temperament, our life history, in our Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 1 of 12

2 relationships. We can do that. Today, it opens up for us. I hope lights go on so that you can see the way God s Spirit works. God s Plan: To make you His perfect child The first thing you need to know in order to appreciate this is that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. This is His plan. He is going to make you His perfect child. There are two parts to that. Part One: He is going to make you His child. Part Two: He is going to make you perfect, His perfect child. Sometimes the Bible will say complete, or mature but essentially He is going to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ and He is committed to this. Oh, He is going to do this and He will do whatever it takes. But here is the key to understanding how this all works together, how He will make you a perfect child. The same way He makes you a child of His is the same way He will make you perfect. He is not going to change methodology. The same way God makes you His child is the same way He is going to make you a perfect child. So, how does God make us a child? We need a little review which we need to know because it is the same method. We have this giant prop (2-foot wrapped gift) up here because it is by Grace that we are saved through faith. I want you to always remember that Grace means gift. He makes us His child by giving us the Gift of what Jesus did it is a payment here (holding up check prop). Jesus signs the check, and it is marked Paid in Full for the debt we owe the Father. Jesus did that on the cross for us. That is the Gift: when we put our faith in that gift it is nothing but faith in nothing but the gift in Christ alone. So, the formula, the definition of Christianity has been and always will be this: Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 2 of 12

3 Faith Alone -- in Grace Alone -- by Christ Alone. So, it is trusting that this Gift from Christ, trust is the faith, in grace from Jesus Christ (the giver of the gift); that is what saves us. That is what makes us His child faith alone in Christ alone by His grace alone. We don t add to this Gift. If we add to the Gift, if we try to pay for the Gift, then it is not a gift any more. What happens to us in this gift is that it causes us to be His child because at that moment we become justified. Justified The word justify is a legal term used throughout the New Testament (in the Old Testament it uses the word righteousness ) that says we are His child. We can become His child because we are justified. Justification comes to us as a result of this Gift, our belief and trust in this Gift, from Jesus Christ alone. What many people do is believe in this (prop is stationary bicycle), which is our icon for the Law or doing good. It is called a stationary bicycle because it does not move. It does not get you anywhere. It is kind of ridiculous. People don t do this for very long for a lot of good reasons. It does not go anywhere. Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 3 of 12

4 So you understand, Paul says this three times in the theme verse of this book, Galatians 2:16: Galatians 2:16 I know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we (Jews) have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. You cannot get this (gift) from here (bicycle/works). It does not work. It cannot work. It never could work. How are we made a child of God? By faith alone in His gift alone from Jesus Christ alone. Why? There is a part of it that is just physics. It is the only thing that CAN change us. It is Grace that transforms our soul. It is a Gift from God that our spirit is renewed. Something from the outside of creation has to come inside of us and change us from the inside out. You cannot make yourself better. You cannot make yourself His child. You have to just believe (trust) that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was adequate, Full Payment, to justify you and to make you His child. Boom! You are His child. That is how we become His child by placing our trust in this Gift. That is how you continue to become His perfect child. Legalism How do we become idiots? How do we become foolish Christians? We bring in legalism to it. Legalism is the idea that we have to work for it. There are two strains of legalism: The first strain of legalism is: I don t think this (Gift) is going to do everything and so I am going to go over here (exercise bike) to earn it. I am going to do certain things and get my life together and then I will receive this Gift. Then it is not a gift any more. Besides you will never get your life cleaned up. The second strain of legalism is: A person says Thank you, Jesus, for this gift of becoming your child. Now, I am going to become a perfect child of yours. I will be there in a minute. [Holds the Gift box, sits on the exercise bike and starts to work for it.] In the Bible, sanctification is the idea of becoming the perfect child. What Paul is saying is that what you began in the spirit, are you now going to perfect with rules and regulations and laws? That is not how it works. It never worked that way. It cannot work that way. Let me make sure we understand the definition of legalism. Legalism is not the presence of the law. The law is good. Psalm 119 is the largest chapter in the Psalms and it goes on and on and on about how beautiful the law is and how it keeps us safe and it exposes us to the nature of God. God gave us the Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 4 of 12

5 law; He is not a legalist. It is not the imposition of a law on someone. There are still dos and don ts. Obeying the laws is still a good thing because God calls us to do that and He is not a legalist. So, if it is not the law and it is not imposing the law on us or someone else, what is legalism? Legalism is about attitude. It is a false hope. It is putting weight on the law or the doing. It is putting hope in the commitment to things, to doing things. Oftentimes, it is taking a good thing [often something God gave us] and we put trust in it. We are not supposed to put trust in anything but Grace, only the Gift of God. Why? Because only Grace transforms it is the only thing that has the power to do it. Only God s mercy in our life can make us perfect. It is ridiculous to think otherwise. It has always been that way and always will be that way because we are so broken. How do you know if you are getting involved in legalism? How do you know if you have taken a good thing and you have gone off the rails and changed your focus? Usually you have an over commitment of time to this good thing, or you are throwing money at this good thing. Then you have enthusiasm and you are getting your hopes up way too high in this good thing. Paul would say: Don t get your hopes up because that good thing cannot change you; it never could. You cannot do anything from the outside to make your inside change. You have to be changed from the inside out and that is a miracle. Another synonym for this Gift is miracle. God does miracles in our lives to make us His child (a miracle), to make us His perfect child (a bunch of miracles). He loves how we talk about His miracles in our lives. He resents when we talk about what we are doing because we are not doing anything that really causes change. Only Grace transforms. We just sang, Your grace is enough, Your grace is enough. With all of that in mind, look at how Paul comes at the Galatians because of their errors. Galatians 3:1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed [as] crucified? Paul is saying: When I was walking around amongst you, as a former rabbi, I was walking around like Christ crucified. I did not come, giving you a lesson on what Jesus told you to do. I gave you a message on what Jesus has done. As a former stationary cyclist and one who had the store that sold these cycles, I was crucified in your very midst. Did I walk around trusting in this Law any more? No. The Law does not change you; it never could change you; it never had the potential to change you. Paul goes on and asks them from their own personal experience. Galatians 3:2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 5 of 12

6 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? [Are you picking up this Gift, taking it to the stationary bike to work it out for yourself?] 3:4 Did you suffer so many things in vain if indeed it was in vain? 3:5 So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? It was because of faith because you heard what was true about what Christ had done. Then, do you remember what happened? Paul would lean in to us and say: Do you remember the feeling you had when you heard that you were absolutely, completely accepted by God because you have been justified, paid in full? Do you remember the Spirit of God coming upon you and you felt lighter? You felt released. You felt intimacy with God. That was God s Spirit confirming to you. Did you get that by setting up all those rules that you never fulfilled? Isn t that the point of the Law to tell you what you are doing wrong? Did you get that Spirit through this bike (works) or through this Gift? It was through the Gift. Paul goes on: even the miracles that took place in your church, when people were healed and when people s lives were changed so radically, did that happen because they were trying harder? No. It happened because of the Gift of Grace. You heard what Jesus Christ had done and then you believed in it and then the miracles happened. Miracles happen more prevalently in the New Testament because the message was getting out and God was confirming the message and could say today: Do you remember how He did those miracles? How did you get them? Not through works (bike) but through this Gift. That is the way it has always been. The Father of faith is Abraham and he was justified, made righteous, by a gift. Not only in your life but all the way back to the beginning: Galatians 3:6 Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. 3:7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith [not of works] who are sons of Abraham. 3:8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles (non-jews) by faith [alone], preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, [saying], All the nations will be blessed in you. 3:9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 6 of 12

7 Abraham defines what a believer is. Let me briefly recount his story. God comes to Abraham when he is 75 years old, and he and his wife Sarah have no children, and God says: I promise you that you will have an heir and you will be a blessing to everyone in the world, not just your tribe. At that moment, in Genesis 12, Abraham believed (he heard and believed and trusted in that promise) and at that moment it was accredited to him, full accreditation of what is righteous and we are using the word justified. How did that happen? By working? No. By trying? No. The moment that Abraham believed, he was made righteous. Now, just to exaggerate the point, Abraham and his wife do not get pregnant right away. Abraham is 75 years old. Ten years later in Genesis 15: How is it going, Abraham? Good. How is that promise? I still believe in the promise. Okay. He is 99 years old. It is 24 years later from the time of the promise and Abraham still does not have a child. God promises it a third time. The whole world will be blessed by your heir. I will give you an heir and the heir will be a miracle baby. God wanted to drag this out because everyone would always remember this. God knew that someday we would be talking in church about what a believer is. So God in His foreknowledge said: This is the definition of a follower of God the person who believes in what he was promised by God. This is real faith the give-your-life-for-this faith because no one will ever say about Abraham and his wife Sarah: Well, you know, it was just a matter of time. Really? A matter of time? He waited from 75 years old to 99 years old. At what point do you say: The only way this couple is going to have a baby is if God gives it to them. And God did. God specializes in miracles because He gets all the credit for miracles. Abraham is defining faith by saying: I believe in miracles. Only God can change me. It is a gift and it comes from outside creation and it enters my soul on the inside and it changes me from the inside out. That is what real faith is. Let s make sure we get this: It is by Grace alone that you become a child of God. It is by a Gift alone that you become a perfect child of God. The same way you become a child of God is the same way you become a perfect child of God. His grace is enough. Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 7 of 12

8 All these other things, these good things [again, I said the Law is good] can turn to Legalism/works if it is putting your hope in it. It is putting too much weight into that. It is talking about the thing instead of God. All these good things that people do are just tools. We find ourselves consumed with the tools and not the Carpenter. Examples of Legalism: Let me put it this way. A hammer does not drive a nail. A hammer is a tool that a Carpenter uses to drive a nail. I have seen Carpenters drive nails with wrenches, with cordless drills, with rocks. They will use anything to drive a nail. If you focus on the tool, you are a Legalist. If you focus on the Carpenter, you get it. Let me show you how this works sometimes. Here is how you can take this Gift box, and when it comes to justification, you believe you are justified by faith but then you take it to sanctification. Here is how this happens. You take good things (Bible study, Bible memory, Bible seminars), you are doing this [holding the Gift box but still working for yourself, pedaling on the stationary bike]. This is believing that the Bible study and the Bible memory will transform your life. It won t; it can t. It is a hammer. It is the primary tool God uses to change people but it is just a tool. When you get over excited about something like: Oh, this study is it! Or you are compelled to memorize more Bible or you are pushing this on other people, that means you are putting hope and trust in that tool. Scripture memory cannot change your life and Scripture knowledge cannot change your life. I love that stuff but don t make it into something more. Did you know that all of the people leading the chant: Crucify Him. Crucify Him they had memorized most of the Old Testament and were scholars. Memorizing Scripture does not change your soul; it cannot. So, what you began in the Spirit, are you now perfecting with all these Bible studies? Don t be a foolish Galatian. Sometimes we are well meaning towards other people. Especially in parenting, we take this and say: This is my little child and I am going to make sure he does everything right so he can become perfect in God s sight. We get over zealous about what we hope for. We choose education based on what we think will change the child s life. Education will not change a child s soul. It can t. Some people put their hope in private schooling, or in home schooling. No one has ever put faith in public schooling. But you can hear it in a young family s life: We can t wait until little Billie is in this school Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 8 of 12

9 and that school is so great and all the cool kids are going to that school and you need to go to that school and we are going to sacrifice so the kids will go to this school. Friends, schooling cannot change a soul. If Paul were here, he would say: You are getting your hopes up way too high. You will know that when you are disappointed later because education does not have that potential. I love this curriculum, classical Christian education, that is promoted today in a lot of private schools. That is almost the exact same curriculum that many of the Nazi German generals had. The highest ranking officers had a classical Lutheran education. That did not change their lives because it could not. It never had the potential of affecting that change. So what God began in your spirit are you trying to perfect in some parenting trick? Be careful. It might be a wrench that God uses to drive nails but it is God doing the driving. I have seen people do this with mission trips. They go on a mission trip and get their world rocked. I have had that experience too. They come back from their trip and say: I have got to get back there again. I want to have that same experience again and you should have that same experience as well. Again, committing a lot of time, money, and enthusiasm are symptoms. They want to do the thing again in order to have another buzz. Those are just tools. Get your eyes off the tool and get your eyes back on the Carpenter, the Gift. I have had two mission trips that have absolutely been used by God to alter me, to convict me of great things, of my being selfish and ungrateful. I have also been on about 15 other mission trips that were just really hard and the food was bad. But you don t put hope in the mission trip for being perfected. You don t take the Gift box and go over here to the bike and think: I m going on a mission trip and everybody else should too. You don t put your hope there. Where should your hope be? In grace alone through your faith in that Gift alone through Jesus Christ alone. You are so bent in so many different ways, no activity is going to make you better. It will take a miracle to get you right. Christian fads come and go: the new speaker, the new seminar, the new whatever. That has been going on for so long. Paul wrote one church kind of slapping their hands because they were drifting towards that. He was getting a bunch of groupies. Paul said: Wait, stop everyone. I just plant. This other guy coming through, he is just going to water. God causes the growth because it is through grace that He transforms; it is God s mercy that we see growth; it is not in our techniques or the things we do. Don t put any hope there. Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 9 of 12

10 God says: The way I begin with you is the way I will continue with you. I have an ambition for you and it is this. You will be My perfect child. The way I make you My child is by grace alone through faith alone by Jesus Christ alone. The way I will make you My perfect child is the same way I made you My child. By grace through faith in that grace/gift and the gift is from Jesus Christ. It is a slight deviation that led us so Paul wondered what happened to us. Did somebody put a spell or hex on us? Have you been putting your faith in something or someone else or some manner of work in order to become a better Christian? That is legalism in the area of sanctification. That is why Paul brings us this message and it is so invigorating because it is so freeing. It is not up to us. These tools (Bible study, mission trips, education) expose us and lay our hearts out if we allow it for God s mercy, God s gift, His Spirit to touch us and to make us well. How do we become a perfect child of God? We are going to take last week s application on how to become a child of God because it is the same method on how to become a perfect child of God. Galatians 2:19 For through the Law I died to the Law so that I might live for God. The first thing we do is say: I am not putting faith in the stuff I am doing any more. I am tired of fighting. I am tired of the exhaustion. I am tired of the competitiveness. I am tired of the way I judge other people. I am putting that thing to death. That is stupid. I look like an idiot doing it to put faith in anything but God. That is the first thing you do. The next thing is Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. You are not consumed with your own thing, your issues, your history, the things that God needs to work on in your life. You talk about those things. You pray about those things. But what are you focusing on? Those things are dead you have been crucified with Christ. That soul is gone and you have a new name now. So, the way you live now, -- the life I live in the body, the life I live in this flesh, I live by faith in this Gift, the Son of God, who loved me and He gave himself up for me. See, that is what you are focusing on and where your faith is and that is where you are putting your trust, where you are putting your bet down that I am going to spend my time enamored, compulsively addicted to this fact that the King of the Universe took off His gown and left His ring and Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 10 of 12

11 His shoes on the throne in Heaven, disguised himself as a man, He loved me so much that He delivered himself up even to death on a cross. I am going to quit talking and thinking so much about things like: envy, bitterness, vanity, etc. and I am instead going to be mesmerized by this, how I can grow deeper in this understanding. I am going to let God use these tools -- but I am not going to put any faith in these tools (Bible study, mission trips, education, etc). I will say: God open up my soul. I want to become vulnerable to your will. Now, I am hoping and trusting and have faith that Your Spirit will touch that part of my life so that all I care about is telling people about the story of Your miraculous intervention and how You made me well. Abraham was running around, telling people: God gave me this baby. You think it was me? No, God gave me this baby and I will tell you the story. It takes 25 years to tell you. That is what we do. We say: God, use these things so that we can tell a great story about how Your Gift changed my soul. Grace transforms nothing else can. It never could. My hope today is that you would see that the power of salvation is the power of sanctification. The power of justification, the thing that made you justified, is the same exact power, the Gospel, that will make you perfect. God has a plan for your life that you be His perfect child. He makes you His child through faith, grace, from Christ. He makes you His perfect child from grace, through faith, by Jesus Christ. Let s talk to God about this and we need to start with confession. Then let s ask God to open up our souls to see what would happen if we stopped working (you died to this Law) and you let Grace in there. You let a miracle, a visitation from God s Holy Spirit, let that touch you and let s see what happens. We will tell stories about it. Christ alone can rescue us. Lord Jesus, First, I would like to confess that it is in my pride that I want to do something I want some partial credit for this. So I take your gift of salvation and I get on this silly stationary bike and I say: Look at all that I am doing to become a better Christian. God, I am first of all sorry that I do that and promote that and I inflict that upon my children and my mate and my friends. Besides it being stupid and idiotic, it takes away from your great stories of glory You could have if we just talked about your gifts to us. Lord, forgive me for doing that. Lord, I ask that You would allow me to be so strong and vulnerable that I would open up my soul to You in some kind of area of my personality or my temperament or my life that I have been trying to Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 11 of 12

12 work on to make it well. I ask that You would touch me there with your Spirit and that Gift would transform me and I will tell the world about a miracle that happened in me. You will receive all the credit in my soul and through my words. Lord, show us the power of your Gospel in making us perfect, that we might better understand it and that we might promote it, that we would not be foolish Galatians or idiots. Lord, make us wise saints. We pray this with great expectations and hopes of your answering our prayers. In Jesus name, Amen. Freedom.3.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 12 of 12