Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 13, 2024 | Galatians - 4 Hard Questions

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October 13, 2024 | Galatians - 4 Hard Questions · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we're going to be looking at, we're going to begin Galatians chapter 3, and this is sort of the problem that is facing the churches there, right?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is uh Paul is looking at this beautiful group of people in this region that we would call Galatia, and he is asking a host of questions of them because what he knows is that they started strong and they had a strong faith when he left.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what has happened now is that they have weakened that faith and they have let in these outsiders who have twisted that faith.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's sort of this anemic gospel that doesn't really stand for anything at all.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a reminder to us, like I said, of how possible that is, really how vulnerable we all are to having our faith be something that just erodes over time.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like maybe day to day you don't see the degradation, you don't see the decline.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: But after something maybe significant happens, or maybe we're just struck by how different it feels now than it did back when we first trusted in Christ.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: This morning I want to sort of pose to you a couple questions, four questions in particular, that come from Galatians chapter 3, the beginning there, and they come from the questions that Paul was asking the church.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And these questions are sort of rhetorical according to him, but what they do is they sort of bring up the issues and the heart issues that were present in the local churches there.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that they will do well to help us kind of ask these hard questions ourselves.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is my faith as strong as it once was?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're just sort of, you know, continuing on cruise control, maybe some of these questions will help sort of shake us awake.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's my goal anyway.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um Jim shared last week the great passage at the end of Galatians chapter 2, right?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the last two verses there are I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in that beautiful sort of phrase that we have really comes all of the emotion from this morning, where we not only have an understanding of what the gospel represents, but also what happens when it is tarnished, when it is sort of bloodied and beaten up, and the gospel message no longer represents the grace of God, but as has happened in the Galatian churches, right, they have introduced works into the problem, into the mix.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And as Paul says there in verse 21 of chapter 2, he says, if that is the case, if you have begun to make this great gift of God, which is only by grace, that you have received, like you've done nothing for it, if you begin now to work for it, then it means nothing.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't still mean something because you have said that there is an option B.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when you have said there is an option B, it means option A really wasn't the only option, and therefore Christ did not need to die.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is where he's coming from with these emotions.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: But again, the heartbreak is that this is not the way the church was acting when he left them last.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: He had planted these churches around the region.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: We find this in Acts chapter 13 and 14.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they had gone through a lot of persecution, and they were great, sort of growing churches who were proclaiming the gospel.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then he leaves to go on and plant more churches.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Others come in from Jerusalem, which we've been calling the last couple weeks, like the circumcision party, and they come in and they begin to change things and warp it from the inside.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a reminder that even things that start strong are not guaranteed to finish strong.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh last weekend, the reason I was gone is Hannah and I had taken a little vacation up to Seattle.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And while we were up there, um we went to Mount Rainier National Park.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're you're on the highway going up there, uh we passed this facility, which I know you can't read it on the side, but that's the Boeing Factory.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um the Boeing Factory, Boeing Aircraft Company, if you don't know, has been having a really rough like five years.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um they were a company that makes basically most of the aircraft that you fly on commercially, and um they used to be known for great engineering and quality control.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um they have all of these plants and factories up and around Washington.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: But about 20 years ago, they moved their headquarters first to Chicago and now to Virginia, over 2,000 miles away.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And during that time, quality control began to decrease, the engineering standards began to decline, they got rid of a lot of their engineers, and then in 2019, 2018 and 19, um, there were uh two different flights that crashed and hundreds of people died because of their decline in quality.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And since that time, they've had a host of other problems.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: A door plug blew out of one of their planes.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Their factory workers are on strike right now.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: They got a new CEO back in August.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the new CEO, in early August, made the decision that he was no longer going to have his offices in Virginia, instead, he was going to go and work back in Seattle because he had a background as an engineer and he wanted to make sure that he could oversee the quality of their planes to restore trust.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope I hope that works out.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I flew on a couple Boeing planes this weekend, and we did okay.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I hope that they are able to come back to a place of quality.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um but when we were driving by on the highway, what was so startling to me though is, I mean, you can see how tiny everything looks with how big these factories are.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're making huge planes inside, and it's like some this this megalith, this amazing company that for decades and decades was sort of like a standard of American manufacturing, has now sort of operating in this lowly place.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, when those planes sadly crashed, it wasn't one thing that had ruined them, but rather it was this slow decline.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to get out of that slow decline is what they're doing right now and what we need to do, if our faith feels the same way, is we need to start asking these hard questions.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go to Galatians chapter 3, and I'm gonna read to you all of these questions.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're actually not going to cover every single one.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Paul asks six of them.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna cover four, but I think that we'll be able to bring together the heart behind this and answer some questions ourselves.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, You foolish Galatians, great start.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who has cast a spell on you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I only want to learn this from you.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Are you so foolish?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Did you experience so much for nothing, if in fact it was for nothing?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: So then, does God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it by believing what you heard, just like Abraham, who believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you if this is sort of your first Sunday, you haven't been with us, very briefly, the conflict in these churches is between grace and the works of the law.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Grace is the gospel message.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for our sins, we have received God's grace, and we need to do nothing else to find salvation in God.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: We need to do nothing else to spend eternity with Him.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: We need to do nothing else but by faith trust in Him in order to be saved.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Coming along in option B is this group coming from Jerusalem, which has told the Galatian churches, they're like, yes, yes, yes, but if you really want to be the good Christian, if you really want to do the thing that, like gold star-worthy kind of stuff, then they have all of these things that are a part of the Jewish law that they're saying Christians need to follow.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: They need to be circumcised, they need to eat certain foods, various things like that.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul is furious.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a group that he has fought many times before in many cities, because it sounds good at the outset.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds nice to say, but don't you know there are certain things that you need to do for God to really care about you, for you to be really righteous, for you to really be serious about your faith.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, what that does is it means that you are working for something that God has already given to you.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, it makes the cross less important and in fact not necessary at all, because if there is any path to be worked to salvation, that means we don't need Jesus.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, this is the problem, and he begins to ask these questions.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one we're going to look at is simply he says, Who has cast a spell on you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Publicly portrayed as crucified.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: What he means is Paul has described the, excuse me, he has described the crucifixion of Christ.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: He has described the work of the cross, the passion of Jesus.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he has uh explained it to them so clearly and plainly that it is as if they had watched Jesus and they were there with him on Calvary.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is saying, I have presented this gospel message to you.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the first two chapters of Galatians, he's like, gospel given to me by the Lord, I've shared it with you.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I have presented this to you, and it is as if you have seen Jesus himself.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then he asks the question, but who has cast a spell on you, right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Paul makes the point that the truth of the gospel message was revealed to them, and as I've I've taken some time to explain, we know that that was the case.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Galatians started out so strong, right?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: In a way that we can often relate to.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you if you're one of those people that maybe had an amazing conversion moment, like almost everybody here would have been adults when they walked away from either pagan idolatry or sort of the Jewish synagogue and they trusted in Christ, there is a moment of conversion for them that was magnificent.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is an amazing blessing if you were one of those people that says, like, I've been a Christian since I was a little kid.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Praise God for that.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who've come to faith a little bit later in life, have maybe been reawakened to it, you know how much of a change that is, how the scales fall from your eyes, and like things are just different.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, When I left you, that was that was you guys.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: You were sort of young baby Christians, but it's not like you were left helpless.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: You had people there who could lead you on towards truth and continue to draw deeper into this theology.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: But then he says, it is as if somebody has cast a spell on you.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't literally mean that there are like witches in their midst, okay?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there is sort of a sinister connotation to this.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And his question, his frustration really, is blaming the Galatians for what has happened, right?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are other parts where he's frustrated with the false teachers.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's true, certainly.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But here, right now, he's like, what were you guys doing?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what happened?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: They came in, and it's your responsibility to be able to recognize that they were sharing a false gospel.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I'm driving on the highway and I see exit signs, it's my responsibility to carry forth to my destination.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: If I take the wrong exit, it's not, well, that sign was so big that I just couldn't, you know, not exit here.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's that it's my responsibility to go towards my destination.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's Paul's point as well.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: His his it's not a joke, but his irony is he's like, how is it that you are so transfixed by these people?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like they have come in with something that you know is false and you've begun to follow it.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what happened there?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the sad truth is that this is something that is so easy to happen because oftentimes after we trust in Christ and we have this sort of either amazing experience or strong faith, we can get to this place where we just sort of like plateau.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: We get to this area where we just go, I'm doing great.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've got the answers to my questions, I know where I'm going when I die, um, I know that Jesus has saved me, and we just sort of coast on that knowledge.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And while that's not a matter of salvation because it is by faith, we go, yes, but what is the quality of that Christian life?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, are you setting yourself up for failure?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is yes, you are.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you go, well, how am I supposed to know these kinds of things?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how am I supposed to be able to uh guard against falsehood and protect myself and Christian, if you know the gospel well enough to be saved by it, you know the gospel well enough to defend it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's putting you on the debate stage, okay?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to come up here and answer like 17 questions.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: But keep in mind that for the Galatians, it was not like some fringe, weird theological issue that they needed to sort of walk on.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Paul comes in and he's like, tell me all about, you know, the end times, and everyone's like, who knows?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what's going on here.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is the core gospel message, which has some very specific things about it, and somebody comes in and goes, uh-uh, one of those is not right, and they go, Okay, sounds good.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: You have authority, you have a bit of charisma, we're just gonna follow you.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, You've got to have a backbone here.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what took place?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so my first question is a bit of a stinger, but it's do I take my faith seriously?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do I take my faith seriously in a way that means that I'm drawn deeper into a relationship with Christ and I desire that?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or do I have a faith that exists certainly, right?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like we trust in Jesus, we know him, he's our Savior, yes, yes, yes.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: But for all intents and purposes, like that's kind of the extent of it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really have a personal relationship with God, I don't pray to God, I don't read the Bible, and again, it's not about the works, but nevertheless, the fruit that we are sort of producing as Christian believers and as those who trust in Jesus, do I take him seriously?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Am I putting intention and effort into drawing closer to Jesus just because it brings joy and contentment and peace, because it is a good thing to do to look more like the image of Christ, or am I just satisfied with having the answers?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: The second question that Paul begins to share with them after that is he starts asking these, again, rhetorical questions.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: We know the answer, but that's sort of the point.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: The Galatians know the answer too.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is kind of an odd question, you might think.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um we probably don't talk as much about the Spirit as we should, but what he's speaking of here is the Holy Spirit of God, which indwells and resides within all believers in Christ.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's sort of an order of operations here.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: You trust in Jesus by faith, and then you receive the Holy Spirit.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not that you think Jesus is neat, you trust in him, and then you do a lot of works, and then if you've done a really good job with those things, then you get the Spirit.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's some denominations today, more in the charismatic bent, where um you sort of are not truly the Christian until you have exhibited certain specific aspects of the Spirit, like speaking in tongues.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: But for Paul, what was very clear and what was true we see in Pentecost was that you repent and you trust in Christ, and then you have the Spirit.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so for the Galatians, his question then is how did you receive the Holy Spirit?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: i.e., was it because of what I told you, you've just had faith, or is it because of what they have told you, because you've had works?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, and what is so ironic, is that everybody he's talking to who has trusted in Christ, they already had the Spirit.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so his greater question, the thing that underlines all of this is he says, Why are you working for something you already have?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you putting forth effort into something that is already accomplished?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not only are you wasting your time, that would be one way to say it, but furthermore, why are you thinking that this is truth?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because what that uh represents is a misunderstanding at a foundational level of who Jesus is and what he has done for you.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you if you're one of those people who's kind of like chronically late how often it seems that you are rushing and going over the speed limit to try and get to your destination.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um but what is always amazing and yet amazing is that's an overuse of that word, what is um obvious and yet never acted upon is that simply by leaving five minutes earlier, you don't really need to speed, right?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um when you are speeding, particularly let's just say you're around town here, you're gonna cut off maybe like one minute, two minutes to your arrival time.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're not doing a lot.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And as you like punch through the yellow and the red light, and as you like cruising on towards this thing, we rarely ever consider or at least act on the next time.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Man, if I just left five minutes earlier, I wouldn't have to do this at all.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because speeding feels like it's making more of a difference than just leaving five minutes earlier does.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Speeding makes us feel like we're actually hurrying and making up for lost time, where just being a bit more diligent early on does not.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's the exact same thing that happens in our Christian life.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: We have been given this amazing gift, many gifts, more than we can count, blessings upon blessings, simply by the grace of God.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: We don't deserve it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: We can do nothing to work for it.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: It has just been given to us as gifts upon gifts, right?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And yet that doesn't make sense to us because we don't deserve it and haven't worked for it.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is an act of grace.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we end up doing over time is developing this habit where maybe we know that in our head, but as our actions, we're gonna start working for these things, right?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Either because we want more of them, and so we think that God is going to like grant wishes because we have been obedient, or uh maybe that we want to feel like we finally deserve some of the blessings that we have received.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are a whole lot of different like Dr.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Phil scenarios here about what it means, about why we draw deeper into uh the psychology of trying to work for these things, but the plain truth is that we often do.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: We often start working for something that we already have.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what that creates is the Christian who knows Jesus, loves Jesus, has walked with him their whole lives, and is exhausted because they have been trying to earn their salvation still.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean in that case that they have trusted in a false gospel, but simply that the way that they are living does not align with what they say that they believe.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I do this all the time.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I do this all the time because I, to make a long story short, the way that I some of my greatest influences in my life is that sort of you worked and then you received something, and that if you did it particularly well, that was when you got praise.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have a hard time with the idea that God has just given me grace and counted me as righteous and has covered me with the blood of Jesus and has made me holy.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't deserve any of that.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what do I do is I continue to try and make it about me because that's the only thing that seems to make sense in my head.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot wrap my mind around the love of God.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get it.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get why he would do it for us.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get why he loves us as much as he does.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get why he would take a sinner and he would make him clean, but he did.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question for us here, number two, is are you working for something you already have through Christ?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: For the Galatians, it might have been the Holy Spirit.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: For you, maybe it's blessings.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the love of God, right?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: The peace of God, the joy of God, whatever it is, you have these things through Christ.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: They are yours in unlimited measure.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a single thing that you can do that makes God love you more or less.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: But oftentimes we find that we are working for our faith, and that is the second question that should make alarm bells go off in our head.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, we're going to skip over are you foolish?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Are you so foolish?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of get what he's saying here.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: He already told them they were fools.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Paul then says, After beginning by the spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: When we were in Seattle this past weekend, we stopped by uh like a cheese factory.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: It also had a restaurant in it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And while we were waiting for our uh sandwiches, you could sort of look through this glass and watch people making fresh cheese, right?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: In this huge, huge batches, hundreds of pounds at a time.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really awesome.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was wonderful to watch.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and then, of course, like they would then bring some of that fresh cheese out into the lobby and you could try it.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um so cheese is one of those products, though, where you can eat it like right off the, you know, straight from the stainless steel tub.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can eat it right then, or for most of us, we like it better after it's been aged for a while.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is true with any spirit like wine or whiskey or something like that as well.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: That there's if that bothered you, just forget that I said that.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you can just go back to cheese.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just go back to cheese.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: But there's an element where you can have it as it is, but it's far better over time.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um when we talk about sanctification, which is this that big sort of church word, which basically means being made holy, um, we know that we are sanctified.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: We are made holy in Christ.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have his righteousness given to us, which is that we then sort of wear the moment that we trust in him.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are made holy.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it does that's really neat for a number of reasons, but one of them is like even when you talk about prayer this morning that we did as a congregation, we can go before the throne room of God in a way that the folks back in the Old Testament could not, because they were not sanctified in the same way as we are.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's why Moses couldn't go into the Holy of Holies, but we can as Christians.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Big deal.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, the idea though is we are holy right now.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it's sort of a um a matter of fact that God uh sees us as holy because of Jesus.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what we all know from experience is that we do not act like Jesus.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are sinful and continue to be sinful every single day of our lives.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this other thing that comes along called progressive sanctification.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a quiz right afterwards.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Progressive sanctification, which simply means that over time, after we've trusted in Christ, we draw closer and closer to him and look more and more like him as we desire to live the way that he has called us to live.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Which is ultimately the way that God designed us to live and gives us the greatest joy and satisfaction, and then we messed it up in the garden fast forward to now.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we are simply trying to get to a place by the power of the Spirit, right, where we are then looking more and more like Jesus Christ.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the question that Paul is asking who and where does the power come from that you are walking down that road of sanctification?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because what Paul has told them is that it has begun by the Spirit, and the Galatians believed that.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Look, we are sinners, we cannot do this on our own.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is only by the grace of God in our lives that we can ever hope to carry out his will in our life.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then they start doing that.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they're pretty good at it by the power of the Spirit.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're exhibiting a lot of these fruits, and we find out later that like miracles are happening in their midst, and God is doing amazing, wondrous works in this region for those who have trusted in Christ, and all of these stunning things are happening.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, but then it starts to become their responsibility.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, now it's well, it's really because I I've been working really hard at trying to be a better Christian.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because I have instituted these disciplines and I have done these things.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I really give myself a lot of credit for how much more like Jesus I am today than I was.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul goes, What are you doing?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, it began with the Spirit.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: What are you saying that it is now based on the flesh or these works of the law that you are growing closer to Christ and you look more like him?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You don't, and you've missed the point.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: You are not somebody who suddenly looks like Jesus because you've decided to try harder.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is by God's grace that you have done this, but instead we begin to take credit.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the athlete that you see on a commercial, and they're like, because of Gatorade, I was able to win the French Open or, you know, MVP at the Super Bowl kind of thing, and you're like, right, okay.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's also the shoes and the sunglasses and all of those things.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is it is a uh lack of recognition that, and this is true, this is one of those things that seeps in, particularly if you've known Jesus for a long time.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And your life does, because of the Holy Spirit, look more like Jesus than it did, you know, whenever it was that you trusted in Christ.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: You have developed by God these habits that are glorious and are more and closer to his desire for our life than we used to live previously.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you begin to think, well, I'm pretty good.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've done this by myself.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am pretty righteous.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: God's probably pretty happy with me.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: When he's handing out the awards in heaven, I've probably got one coming my way, right?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's a dangerous, dangerous thought.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Question number three: who has made you righteous, not what has made you righteous, who has made you righteous?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is God, not you.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth and finally, we uh the last two questions here, um, or actually three questions, we're kind of going to wrap into one because Paul is sort of hitting the same point here.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Did you experience so much for nothing, if in fact it was for nothing?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: The next two questions um relates again to that same idea of about the Holy Spirit, only this is a manifestation of that Spirit's power.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing miracles.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is it because of your works or because of your faith that you're doing miracles?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then that last question about Abraham, we're actually gonna save that for next week, because we're gonna start looking at Paul's gonna get into this big deal about what is the difference between the law and the gospel and how how are you supposed to think through those things?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Big topic next week.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna finish this morning with Did you experience so much for nothing, if in fact it was for nothing?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's question here is basically like, did all of the experiences that you went through after trusting in Christ, did they matter for nothing?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know exactly what he meant by experiences, uh, Paul.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it could be that he's talking about really wondrous things that they experienced, but most likely he's talking about persecution.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about um the hardships that they went through when they identified themselves with a um significant religious minority in a dominant Jewish and pagan culture.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, it would be more pagan uh as far as so they're believing all the different, you know, pantheon of gods.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a big deal that they did it.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: We find out in the book of Acts that they experienced persecution, that there were a lot of people who were pushing back hard against them, ridiculing them, calling them fools, and all number of things, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's like, you walked through that.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: You stood firm in the faith on this gospel message that like pushed back against uh the religious beliefs of the day and and says something different and truthful about who God is and what he has done.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like you stood with that flag, you you sort of bore um that in the march, and like you, you they threw the eggs, they threw the tomatoes at you, like you dealt with all of it.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, and now uh you've you've picked up these habits that are just making you more acceptable to the religious majority, which would be, you know, sort of the Jews from Jerusalem and what they're thinking here.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so his point is like, you walked through all that stuff.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: At one point in time, you thought it was worth fighting for, you thought it was worth standing for, and now you've just begun to take the path of greatest convenience.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, was it worth for nothing?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: My my stepsister is currently training for an ultra marathon, which, if you don't know, is how you identify crazy people.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something like a hundred miles that she's gonna run.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a normal training day for her would be like running the length of a marathon, okay?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like an easy day.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: So she is, and she's been working up to this for months.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: She's been training so hard, she's got you know the equipment and she had her diet is right.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, all these different things.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine if, like, the day before the race, she was just like, nah.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what would be the point of having gone through all of that pain, all of that struggle, all of that turmoil for this great goal, and then at the very end to just be like, actually, I don't want to do it.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't want to do it, but I also have not undergone all the training for it as well.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's a very easy path that we begin to take where Christianity, which by its nature is offensive, right?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not offensive because we are holding up signs, not offensive because we are militant about it, but because the gospel message is offensive.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're a sinner, you can't do it on your own, you need to submit to God.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's the only way to heaven, and any other path, which is mutually exclusive, which doesn't go through Christ, like they are wrong.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is the gospel message.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that is uh scandalous to people, it is foolishness to many.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, people think it's silly, judgmental, whatever, have word that is associated with those things that you've probably heard, right?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if we are holding to just the true gospel message and we're experiencing rejection for it, the question that comes along is are we going to bend to that and pick the path where we are no longer facing opposition, or are we going to stand with this gospel message, right?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is the problem that mainline denominations have had for quite some time, but especially the last 50 years or so, where I grew up Methodist so I can say it, like the Methodist church has continued to move further and further theologically liberal, and because of that, the message that they are proclaiming of the gospel becomes less distinct as it begins to match more of what the culture says and thinks Christians should be saying.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Non-Christians think that Christians should be saying.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you end up having over time, even though intention was to make it palatable or something like that, what you end up receiving at the very end is this anemic gospel message that really is not distinct or different than anything else that the world is proclaiming.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is something that looks more just like the generalized version of God's love and has none of the teeth that are represented by the true gospel message, none of the things that draw us to account because of our sin.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so then you should have no surprise that people are flocking away from mainline denominations.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Their attempt to draw people in by accommodating is actually making people leave the churches because there's nothing distinctive about them anymore.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so my purpose there is not to just throw stones, but to say that there's real-world examples of what happens here, not just in the Galatian church.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: So my fourth and final question is: is your faith driven by convenience or conviction?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's a good question to ask, particularly in America, because we have not, and especially the Midwest, because we have not yet seen, though it's coming, um, the post-Christian world hit our area.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's here, it's variously around us.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: But we are decades behind Europe, behind even Canada, um, even some places on the coasts, where being a Christian and standing for that faith means that you are in the minority and it is uh relationally and socially problematic for you to stand up for your faith.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, here with us, if you live down in the Bible belt for a little while, you know, it's the opposite.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, you're accepted into the social club.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what's going to happen is that things are going to begin to change.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to be some weird harbinger of doom here, but just like that's what happens over time.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: It has happened throughout history.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what is beautiful is that as the general population begins to reject Christianity, and you end up having people who are standing firm on their faith, there is always a cycle that repeats itself where those who are standing firm in their faith and had sort of this conviction about it begin to fan the flames once again and draw people into this truth.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And those who, where it was just a matter of convenience, they had fallen away long beforehand.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: So these four questions come from Galatians chapter 3, verses 1 through 6, and they and they sort of draw us to account.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what is so startling about them is that not only, at least for me, do they relate to my life and what's going on, but it connects me back to the Galatian churches because they were struggling with the same things that I struggle with, right?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were going through the they're 2,000 years ago in another continent, another language, but they were going through the same struggles that I am.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so where does the hope come from?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the hope comes from at no point in the letter to the Galatians does Paul say that they are beyond uh drawing back from this ledge.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, even in the section we were looking at there, Paul says, you know, was it all for nothing if it was all for nothing?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I know you don't think it was for nothing.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know you don't think that this is something worthy to be thrown away.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you're just sort of acting like it.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're heading towards the trash can, and I want you to step back.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we do though?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously if we if we've been drawn to this place where we go, ma'am, maybe my I various things.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't take my faith seriously.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I um I I don't uh I'm working for things that I already have through Christ.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I my faith is driven more by convenience than conviction.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I or I think that I am the one making myself righteous and and not Jesus, not the Holy Spirit of God.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: If any one of those things has struck you, that means there's room to grow, right?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: That means there's room to draw deeper into your knowledge of Christ and not just knowledge, but your relationship with the Lord and ultimately your fellowship with Him and other believers.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: That means there's like beautiful pasture ahead of you.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's all green grass, right?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's never really a place where that we come to where we arrive.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the further you have to go towards Jesus means that you get to see so much more glory, so many more glorious things because you get to experience all that growth.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's one thing that I would give you.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because, well, let me take a step back.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know the things to do.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: You knew them if you were in Sunday school, and it's because it was how you answered every single question, right?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know that it is good to pray.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know that it is good to read your Bible, you know that it is good to be in Christian fellowship, you know that it is good to walk away from sinful lifestyles.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, right?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: But the question that you have to ask yourself is why those things have not been important to you, why they are not something that you have pursued, because Jesus does not feel important to you.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to that, I want to give you this.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: What I would encourage you to do is there's sort of a two-step process here.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think of your sin, and then I want you to think of the cross, and then I want you to go to think of your sin, and I want you to think of your cross, of Christ's cross.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: As you think of your sin, I want you to recognize and draw deep into the reality that you have fallen short of God's standard, that you are not walking with the Lord the way that you should be, and that absent the cross, you would not be with the Lord.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have rejected him, you're in rebellion against him.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you've trusted in Christ, our daily desire of our hearts is to turn against him.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as that pushes you towards the cross, I've often said, like, the depth to which we understand our sin is then transformed into appreciation for Jesus on the cross.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you understand your sin and how black and dark it truly is, right, and then now you look at the cross, like my arms are not getting long enough, to talk about how amazing it is.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have this very shallow understanding of your sin, I'm righteous, I don't need this, it's convenient, like I get to meet friends, Jesus, and other things, whatever it is, like when you think of the cross, it makes perfect sense that you don't consider that to be amazing.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if you consider your sin, and then you go to the cross, and then you just chew on it like it is, I don't know, like a five-week-old twistler, okay?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just chew on the fact that God loves you, has given you grace and mercy and forgiveness for all of those things that you have done.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as you just go back and forth between those poles, I would, by the power of the Spirit, you will begin to draw deeper into your affection and desire for Christ.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's impossible not to if you're understanding those two poles rightly.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because those are the that's the foundation of the gospel.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're broken, God healed us, and because of that, we're drawn into a deeper life with Him.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope these questions can kind of stir you towards this, but also that you would understand that no matter where you're at, you're never too far gone.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: There is always hope and green pasture ahead, but you must understand the gospel message.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for today.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: God, thank you for the truth of your word.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: I praise you, Lord, and I thank you that you have saved us.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: God, you have given us grace upon grace, blessing upon blessing that we do not deserve.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that that would be something that we don't just say and roll past because we've said it before, but that, Lord, we would consider what does it mean to be a people who live in that grace, who live in that love, that unconditional love, and allow it to transform us.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that these questions would convict us in the way that they should by the power of your Spirit, so that we would draw deeper into a relationship with you.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not because it it you love us more, but Lord, simply because we want to be closer to you.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that is a good and beautiful place to be, is drawing deeper in our relationship with Christ, because that is how you have made us, that is what is most fulfilling, and ultimately that is what has saved us.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you for all of these things.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.