Sermon Transcript
So Galatians chapter 3 is where we’re at this morning. There’s one primary application here too, and it just has to do with how do you, you know, make progress in this Christian life? If you’re a Christ follower, how do you make progress in the Christian life so that you become the person that God wants you to be? So oftentimes, you know, we say, well, I want to be a more loving person. I want to love God more.
I want to love others more. But it doesn’t become a reality. You know, it’s just amazing to me that people could come to Christ some years ago and then years later still be so doggone ornery, you know, mean and hateful. And, and you want to ask them, what’s missing in you? You know, I mean, I thought the Christian life was something that was meant to transform a person.
What’s happening? And so often you meet people that want to be better people, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. And some of what Paul addresses this morning actually addresses that topic. It just gets right into that topic. So, let me read for you the text we’re looking at, Galatians chapter 3.
If you got your Bible, open it up. I didn’t put the passage in the message notes because it’s too long. And then you wouldn’t have any place to write anything down. So I gave you at least a little place to write something down, but take out your Bible or the pew Bible or your phone or something and just follow along and put your thinking cap on just for a few minutes. Put your thinking cap on because I’m telling you what we’re gonna read right now can be confusing.
So this is what Paul said, you foolish Galatians, That’s an interesting way to start into a message, isn’t it? You fool— it sounds a little bit rough, doesn’t it? You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing, if really— if it was really for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?
Consider Abraham. He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand then that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham, all nations will be blessed through him, or through you. So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Verse 10, who rely on observing the law— excuse me, all who rely on observing the law are under a curse. For it’s written, cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. Verse 11, clearly no one is justified before God by the law. Because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ— or through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
You got that? Did it clear it up for you, the initial reading through there? I mean, when I first read this, I’m like, what? You know, what’s going on here? It was a struggle for me.
But let me see if we can try to pull quickly out of this passage the key thought. Look at verse 3. ‘Cause verse 3 is really fundamental to what he’s trying to say. He says, are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?
Now, the question we want to ask is, what’s the goal? What’s the goal? If you have an English Standard Version or a New American Standard Version of the Bible, it translates this verse a little bit different. It says, are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected There’s the goal.
Are you now being perfected by the flesh? So, the goal that he’s after here, and actually these believers that he was writing to understood that they should grow in perfection or grow in righteousness, as you can see in verse 6, Abrahamic type of righteousness. So, I put a little chart on there. It might be helpful to you to see that the goal that he’s talking about here is perfection. It is growth into Christlikeness.
All right? That’s the goal after a person comes to Christ, is to become more and more like Jesus Christ. It’s perfection. It’s righteousness. Now, Paul suggests here there are 2 approaches to seeing that become a reality, to seeing you become a better person than you are right now.
There is the flesh-driven approach. It’s all about human effort. It’s all about our works. Which is law-based, Paul wants us to know, and really it is man’s work. Okay, so you’ve got on the one side this whole fleshly way of pursuing perfection or righteousness.
And this, by the way, having begun by the Spirit, so he’s talking to people who are Christ followers. Having begun by the Spirit, now they were pursuing righteousness by the flesh. Or perfection by the flesh. So there’s the flesh-driven, then there’s the Spirit-led approach. And the Spirit-led approach is, is faith-based, it’s faith-led, and it is the result of God’s work.
So Paul is working on trying to help the believers in Galatia understand the distinction between the two. So you have the flesh-driven life which he calls in verse 3 and verse 1 what? He calls it foolish. It’s foolish to think that you can reach perfection or righteousness in your flesh by law-keeping, by your own works. It’s just simply not going to happen.
It’s kind of like me thinking that I someday through my effort could qualify to play on the professional golf tour, that I would become a professional golfer. Now, Scott Ricciomaro is sitting over there, and he has seen me play. He knows that there is no chance in the world I would ever, ever— it doesn’t matter if I put 10,000 hours in, it doesn’t matter, okay? It’s never going to happen. When I was younger, I thought that maybe it could happen, that maybe someday I could qualify to play on the senior tour, which would be at age 50.
But that idea went down the drain when I played golf with a professional. We had a professional golfer in the church that we were a part of in Southern California. He played on the tour for 5 years. His name was John Champ. None of you have ever heard of John Champ before.
He was a good golfer. He was a good enough golfer to play on the tour for 5 years. He never won a tournament, but he at least played on the tour for 5 years. So get the picture, he was good, but he wasn’t great. I played golf with him and I saw how good he was and I said, there’s no chance.
If he can’t make it, I’m never, I’m never, it’s never going to happen. And the Apostle Paul is essentially saying the same thing here. If you think you’re gonna get to perfection or you’re gonna get to righteousness through your self-efforts, think again. It’s not going to happen. This life that God has called us to is a Spirit-led life.
If we’re going to become the people that God wants us to be, it’s the result of the Spirit, it’s the result of God’s work in us and through us, and the key to that happening is faith. And so, Paul in this passage, if you go back through the passage and you start underlining the word believe or belief, or faith. If you start underlining those words, you’re going to see a lot of believe and beliefs and faiths in this passage. He talks about 2 kinds of faith in this passage. The first faith that he talks about is a faith that Steve focused on last week in Galatians chapter 2.
In fact, just thinking of one verse that he went with us, explained to us last week, Galatians 2:16 says, know that a man is not justified, is not declared righteous. Steve helped us understand the word justification. Is not justified, is not saved by observing the law, but by what? By faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by what?
Faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law, no one will be justified. Paul takes that same matter that he brought up in chapter 2, and in chapter 3 he elaborates on it to say, first of all, if this thing is going to happen in you, you’ve got to be saved. And so we are saved. And how are we saved? Well, quickly look at verse 1.
We’re saved by faith in a person. Who’s the person? It’s Jesus Christ. And Paul portrayed— that’s a fascinating word— he portrayed, he actually in dramatic gestures and vivid accounts helped people understand in Galatia who Jesus was. So, he must have been an incredible communicator, but he preached Jesus to people.
He talked about Jesus’ life. He talked about Jesus’ death, His crucifixion. You see that in verse 1. If you go on down to verse 13, he portrayed how Jesus was Hung on a tree. What’s that?
That’s a cross. And how Jesus was cursed that we might be redeemed or freed from the curse of the law. The curse of the law is death, so Jesus hung on a tree that we might have life. And verse 14, and when Jesus gave his life on a cross, he redeemed us, meaning he paid for our sins or he purchased us out of slavery, out of bondage, and brought us into a relationship with God of freedom. And when that happened, we received the blessing that Abraham received.
What’s that blessing? A blessing of righteousness, that God credits our account with righteousness. He wipes out our sin debts, even as He wiped out Abraham’s sin debts and credited his account with righteousness. And not only do we receive the same blessing that Abraham received, but by faith we receive the Spirit In fact, one of the proofs that a person is saved is that they have the Holy Spirit living within them. That’s one of the ways that you can even know that you are one of Christ’s followers because the Holy Spirit is going to be living within you and changing you and empowering you from the inside out.
And how does one get the Holy Spirit? Well, go back to verse 2. By keeping the law or by believing what you heard? It’s an easy question to answer, you’d think. Verse 5, does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?
What is it? And he only gives us 2 options here. What do you think? Does a person get the Holy Spirit by keeping the law, or does a person get the Holy Spirit by faith in Jesus? I mean, if you’re on Family Feud and this is the question, you only got 2 options, okay?
2 options. Does a person get the Holy Spirit, or is a person saved by keeping the law or by faith in Jesus? Notice there is not a third option. And what’s the third option? Well, the third option is something that Paul is trying to deal with among these people, and oftentimes the same thing that we are dealing with in our culture today, and that is, well, I think it’s the law, it’s keeping the law, and it’s faith in Jesus.
It’s both, it’s both, but he’s not going there. It’s not both. This made me think of the conversation I had. Maybe some of you heard about this conversation, but I had a conversation with a nun in the Ukraine. I was staying at a place where it was cared for by nuns and priests, and anyway, it was in this kind of hotel setting, and it was an opportunity for me to just find out more about their faith and all, and I began a conversation with a nun there, and we talked about this whole matter of law and faith.
I think that one of the reasons she was interested in having the conversation was because it gave her an opportunity to practice her English. I didn’t care, you know, let’s just talk. And so we talked about, so can a person be saved by faith in Jesus alone? She said no. She said it’s Jesus, yes, but it’s also what you do.
You have to do certain things. I was only there about a week or so, so we had several conversations, and then I came back home, and we agreed that we would keep in touch with each other and continue the conversation, which we did by email for a while. I think it might have gone on for as much as a year. It was fascinating to just talk about these 2 matters, faith and law, faith and works, and, and how do they play out, and, and how is a person saved? Ultimately, she stopped writing me.
The only way I could figure it out was she had moved. I heard she had moved to Rome. She was now working in the Vatican, and I guess she stopped writing because the Pope saw our emails. I’m not sure, but it just all stopped. But it’s a really important matter, isn’t it?
What do you believe on this thing? Paul goes on to say, well, let’s verify what I’m saying here with the man of faith. Consider Abraham, verse 6. He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Righteousness was credited.
Righteousness was given to Abraham because he believed. Do you see it there in verse 6? Because he believed by faith in God’s promise to bless the world through his descendants. And verse 7, anyone who follows Abraham’s footsteps and by faith believes in Abraham’s descendant becomes— look at this, verse 7— a spiritual descendant of Abraham. So if you’re a Christ follower by faith, you’re a spiritual descendant of Abraham.
And verse 8 says, and by faith in the gospel that was announced to Abraham, we can share in the blessing, the blessing that God wants to pour out on the world. And verse 9 says, so that those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham. You say, how am I blessed? One of the biggest ways we’re blessed is that God has taken our sin account and he’s credited righteousness over the sin account so that all of our sins are forgiven. But verse 10 says, those who rely on observing the law are under a curse.
If you’re relying on the law, you’re under a curse, for it’s written, cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. That would be the first 5 books of the Bible. Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. Because, you see, the law demanded perfection. Only perfect performance could result in divine approval under the law.
That’s what he’s saying. And nobody’s perfect in this thing. Therefore, as it says here, we’re going to be cursed by the law. The law will condemn us of our sins. In verse 11, he says, so clearly no one is justified before God by the law, not even Abraham.
If he wasn’t justified before God by the law, then we’re not going to be justified before God either. We are justified by— as Steve said last week— we’re justified by faith. Now, let me ask you a question. Is that good news for you or bad news? Well, I hope it’s good news that faith saves us, not faith in works, not faith in the law, But we’re saved by faith in Jesus.
And then that therefore changes everything. It changes our view on works. It tells us that church attendance can’t save us, that giving an offering can’t save us, that baptism will not save us, that taking communion will not save us, that wearing a certain, you know, clothes will not save us. That singing a certain style of music will not save us, that the only thing that can save us is faith in Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified, who died on the cross. And at the moment that we place our faith in him, God gives us the Holy Spirit to work within us and to change us from the inside out.
I had a conversation with a guy this week about this very matter. We were having breakfast together. He’s an irreligious person. We talked for about 55 minutes about just life, right? Things that are going on in his life, his work, his relationship with his girlfriend, bunch of stuff like that.
55 minutes. And then I decided, you know, I’m just going to ask him how he’s doing spiritually now, because I know a little bit about his spiritual background. I know that he grew up Catholic, and he kind of abandoned the Catholic thing. And I said, so, tell me, what’s going on in your life spiritually now? He said, well, it’s interesting, you know.
First of all, I want you to know I’m done with pomp and circumstances. This is what he said. I’m done with pomp and circumstances. I guess I’m just done with the religion thing. I said, good, I am too.
He said, what? What do you mean? I said, you know, it’s interesting. Right now we’re doing a study in the book of Galatians, and Galatians is written to a group of people that think the pomp and circumstances is something that needs to continue in their life, and Paul is trying to say to them, stop it.
That you’re not saved by the law and you’re not saved by things that you do. You’re saved by faith in Jesus Christ alone. You’re saved by relationship with Jesus. Jesus saves us. But it doesn’t stop there.
It doesn’t stop there. There’s a second faith that comes into focus. You notice it in verse 11 where he says, the righteous will live. By faith. So he’s— who is he talking to here?
The righteous. Who’s the righteous? Those who’ve been saved, those who’ve been declared righteous. And he says those who are righteous in Jesus, they need to now live by faith. Those who’ve been declared righteous or justified, those whose sins are forgiven, those who came to faith in Jesus need to continue to live by faith.
This is what Paul talked about as we focused on last week in Galatians 2:20. And again, it simplifies what he’s trying to communicate in chapter 3, where in Galatians 2:20 he said, I’ve been crucified with Christ. I no longer live. Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by what?
I live by faith. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. So, here’s the Apostle Paul. Here’s a Christian. Here’s a Christ follower.
Here’s somebody who’s been saved and justified by Jesus Christ, and he’s saying, I’m living by faith. So faith doesn’t stop. There’s a saving faith. That’s the first faith he focuses on here. There’s a saving faith, and then there’s a sanctifying faith, the second faith he’s focused on.
A life-changing faith, a transformative faith, which takes us then on in this Christian life. And this is the faith that he’s primarily focused on in verse 3, where he says, are you so foolish? I mean, that’s a very important question. Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?
See, he wants them to go back and to continue how they began. The Christian life began with faith. It needs to continue with faith. And verse 5 then says, so does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you? Because you observe the law?
Do you think that this miraculous work that God does is the result of your law-keeping? Or because, he says, verse 5, or because you believe what you heard? And what had they heard? That faith is something that saves you, but faith is also something that transforms you. So that it’s not about trying, verse 3, it’s not about trying, but it’s about trusting.
It’s about trusting in Jesus Christ. It’s about walking with Jesus Christ. We cannot be the people that God wants us to be by our own strength and by our own efforts. And so therefore, that’s the answer to the question of why are some people that are Christ followers who have been Christ followers for years still so ornery? What is it?
Well, it could very possibly be connected to the fact that they’re trying to do this Christian thing in the flesh, that they’re trying to pull it off by themselves. And the Apostle Paul says, don’t go there. It’s not going to work. As Christ saved you, he continues to save you. He continues to sanctify you.
He continues to conform you to his image. But that’s a matter of faith. You’ve got to continue to trust in him. You’ve got to continue to build this relationship.
So just think of it as marriage, for instance. I mean, actually, the church is the bride of Christ, so think of it as marriage. There’s a day that the couple, they get married. They pledge to be husband and wife. There’s a day that that happens.
They make a commitment to one another. But this commitment is carried out, hopefully, in their lives in a relationship. I mean, if it was just, you know, this started it and then that’s the end of it, we’re not going to have a very good marriage. A good marriage is the result of a relationship that grows and develops over time, and it’s something that changes a couple’s life day after day after day. Well, what Paul is saying here is that this Christian thing is a relationship.
And so really, it kind of pushes us back to the question of, so is it a relationship for me or is it a religion? Is it something that I just come to a service like this and I check it off the list and I go, good, I got the religion thing done for another week. Oh man, finally I’ll be okay for this week. Or is it a continuing relationship this week where you find yourself, where we find ourselves talking with God like we would in a relationship? Where we find ourselves reading his word.
Do you read his word during the week, or is it something that we only touch together on Sunday? Because it’s in the reading of his word that we build this relationship. Is it something where we’re sensitive to the work of the Holy Spirit every day as God is leading us and saying, step out in faith, be a person of faith for me? I mean, we just talked about the opportunity even to talk to other people, even to befriend other people, even to bring up spiritual subjects and conversations with other people.
Do we do that? When God leads in our lives, do we kind of just shut that down and quench the Holy Spirit, grieve the Holy Spirit, or do we go to where God wants us to go in conversations when He’s prompting and He’s leading? Do we do that, or is it just a religion?
Do we continue to live with His help? You know, when Jesus told the disciples to go, He first told them to wait, didn’t He? He said, you’ve got to wait until you get the Holy Spirit. Because if you try to do this on your own strength, it’s not going to happen.
And they depended upon the Holy Spirit. And you know what they saw? They saw miracles. They saw miracles. They were people that were chickens who became cowards.
They saw the miracle work of God in them. Seen any miracles lately? Verse 5 says we ought to be people who are seeing God’s miracles. What miracles is he talking about? Well, first of all, he’s talking about the miracle of conversion.
We can’t save anybody. That’s God’s work. Conversion’s his work. What about the miracle of transformation? The miracle of transformation.
Would we love to see God convert people? Would we love to see God transform people? You better believe it. Is that the work of our flesh? No.
It’s the work of the Spirit. It’s the work of a close relationship with God, a vibrant relationship with God that goes way beyond these walls and doors of this building.
I hope that’s the kind of relationship that you want with the Lord. It’s a 2-faith relationship. It’s a saving faith relationship. And it’s a life-changing, sanctifying faith relationship. Bill Frye, in his book The Dance of Hope, remembers the day when he tried to pull a stump out of the Georgia dirt.
He was 12 years of age at the time, and it was kind of a chore that his father gave him. They cut down these pine trees, and then Bill was responsible to come along and pull these stumps out, which If you’ve ever tried to pull a stump out, I mean, that’s like a giant project, you know, get an axe out there and cut the roots and so forth and so on. And there was one particular stump that he could not budge. He just couldn’t get it out of the ground, and he was struggling with trying to get it out of the ground, and his father came over and he looked at it and he said, you know, son, I think I see your problem. And Bill said, well, what’s that?
His dad said, well, you’re not using all your strength. Well, he’d been struggling with this stump, you know, just trying to get it out of the ground, and he was giving it everything he could, and he couldn’t do it. So when his father said, you’re not using all your strength, it really fried him. He got kind of upset. He said, but then when I cooled off, I asked him, okay, well, what do you mean?
And his father said, well, You haven’t asked me for help.
You haven’t asked me to help you.
Let’s pray.
Father, if we are to live like we began, then we would be people of faith, genuine, faith. And we would truly believe that it’s not by our works that transformation happens into righteousness, into perfection, but it is your work.
And I pray, God, that we would daily, moment by moment, ask you for help. And we would listen, and we would follow your lead, and we would see your miraculous work done in our lives and in the lives of others. So, Lord, I pray today for anybody who’s here that has been trying to do this Christian thing without you, that even today they would be willing to say, No more to that. I want a relationship with the God of the universe through his Son Jesus, who died on the cross, who became a curse for us, that I might not any longer be cursed by the law nor condemned, but that I might in Jesus Christ experience what it means to live without condemnation.
Not because I deserve it, but because of grace through faith in him alone. And if you have never reached out for Jesus for that salvation, you can even right now. Just tell him, Lord, save me, forgive me, I want to be one of your followers. And for those of us who are already in your family, we reached out and asked you to save us. God, may we not leave faith behind, but may faith continue, and may we daily reach out to you and depend upon you and your help through a genuine relationship, a genuine love relationship.
Transform us, Lord. Change us. Help us become the people that you want us to be, that we long to be too. And may it be the path to your miraculous work in and through us. And for we pray this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
