[SPEAKER_00]: A Lord and our God, our stronghold, our salvation, our tower, our strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we praise you for this time that we can spend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, we thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We praise you for the men and women who sacrifice so much that we might freely do that here in this nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we pray that during this time we would be able to clearly behold your Son, Jesus Christ, that nothing would stand between us and our beholding you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we praise you for your Word, we praise you for your Spirit, we praise you for your provision in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus' name we pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we get to talk about foolishness, which is lots and lots of fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we get there, there is something that's constantly interesting or intriguing to us, and it's the concept of hypnotism.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this has kind of been a recent, historically, a recent development, this idea that someone's going to wave a watch in front of you, or put something rather hypnotic in front of you, and then somehow be able to influence or suggest
[SPEAKER_00]: or control what is going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, popular media has had a great deal of fun, and we've had a great deal of fun watching all of the fantastic and interesting things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But before hypnotism, it was witchcraft.
[SPEAKER_00]: So being able to control someone's mind through something else was considered a kind of bewitching someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's always been something that's terrifying to humanity that through some form or fashion, someone could gain control over another person's will.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's that exact fear or terror that Paul draws upon in our passage today.
[SPEAKER_00]: all power Rangers aside.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll move on today.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually, we haven't discussed this yet, but there are three major sections in Galatians.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you'd like, you can hold the whole book of Galatians on one hand and just three fingers of that one hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your first section, which is the one we just finished, is the personal account of Paul's relationship to this law versus grace issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Galatians, one and two, cover Paul's personal history in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second section is Galatians III and IV, and it's Paul's doctrinal argument.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's shown how he's historically involved with this issue, and then he moves on to telling them why doctrineally it is incorrect for believers to be placing themselves under law.
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, he moves into practical application, what does this mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: How does it play itself out in Section III?
[SPEAKER_00]: So it divides itself as far as the chapters are concerned into three nice sections.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are moving from section one, the personal account to section two, the doctorinal account.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just to review section one, we have Paul having received his message and his authority from Jesus Christ himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: We spent several weeks digging out why this was so important and what this meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was so terribly and insanely important for us to understand, because the gospel is not a message or a philosophy of man's creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: No man figured out, no person figured out how we would be saved and how we could be made right with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely, there are many man-made religions that seek to answer that question by issue of intelligence, by issue of crafty scheming, or even by empty philosophy, and yet all of those answers fall dreadfully short.
[SPEAKER_00]: of the gospel answer, because it was revealed it was given to Paul by Jesus Christ Himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: That being said, He moved and made the good news clear and defended it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told them precisely what the gospel was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, with all the simplicity, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for your sins and died for my sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He made that ultimately and utterly clear to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul's personal history was then brought to light.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted to remind them and let them know that his life was a life changed by this gospel and this gospel alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had been brought to this place of spiritual maturity, of being a place, of being in a place of leadership within this movement of God's church, God Christ's body, who on earth
[SPEAKER_00]: By this gospel of grace, not by lawkeeping, not by keeping the rules, but by God's amazing grace and the power of this gospel that had been revealed to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the first years of Paul's life with Christ and his ministry, he had not even met the other apostles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why was this so important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because those who were attacking Paul's gospel were trying to do so by saying, oh, he just got his message from Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just got his message from James.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just got his message from John and trying to undermine his authority by claiming that he was connected to people that for the first years of his ministry, he had not even met face to face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we saw that there was a short getting to know you type meeting with Peter that wasn't more than a couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so just a few short weeks is clearly not enough time to rewrite or gain a whole new education and understanding from Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you had this meeting with Peter and likely some of the others, James the Lord's brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even in that, his message he tells us was not affected.
[SPEAKER_00]: The message that Jesus Christ gave him was not affected.
[SPEAKER_00]: We studied a meeting with Peter, James, John, Barnabas, Paul, and Titus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw Paul going down to Jerusalem.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, because of our revelations.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I went down there because the Lord needed to use, or the Lord chose to use me to straighten out some threats to the gospel that were going on in the Jerusalem church.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he brought Barnabas, a Jewish brother who had been with him in bringing the gospel to Gentile lands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And about Titus, a Gentile who was not following their rules, who was not following the Mosaic law, and yet was very clearly filled with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the gospel was saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: The grace of salvation through faith and Jesus Christ was saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we saw the last meeting that we finished studying just last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well Paul corrected Peter in Antioch.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Peter came to Antioch to visit what was something like the Gentile Center of Christianity at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for some time Peter was a great enjoying fellowship with non-Jews or with Gentiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was working, he was working his way of being within them and among them without any split or differentiation because of his Jewish past.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then some people came from James, or actually came from the Jerusalem Church, probably not that James personally sent them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It came from the Jerusalem Church and Peter started to pull back and betray the gospel, not with his words, but with his actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we spent quite a bit of time asking ourselves that same exact question.
[SPEAKER_00]: How often do we betray the gospel with our words, hopefully, infrequently, but it can happen even more easily that we betray the gospel with our actions?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, that moves us into our passage today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Galatians three one reads, you foolish Galatians, who is bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul now begins his logical defense of the truth that both growth and salvation are by faith, not by the works of the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was going through and giving them his history, his authority, defending his authority, defending his place in the
[SPEAKER_00]: the process by which God was revealing this to the new church.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now having established who he is and reminded them in some sense, and maybe informed them in other senses that he is authoritative to speak on this topic, he begins his logical defense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interesting, he could just drop the hammer on them and say, I'm an apostle, Jesus said it, so just do it, but he doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: By God's grace,
[SPEAKER_00]: And through this gracious attitude of the life of Christ within Paul, he takes the time to explain it to them, line after line, verse after verse, so that they would know not that they're just submitting to Paul as an authority, but they were submitting to the truth of Jesus Christ and his gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul starts on the common ground of shared experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember Paul was the one who had sent a block the gospel to these people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was there when they placed their faith in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was there when they received the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was there as he saw in all these different cities of this Roman province of Galatia.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was there as this new, budding church.
[SPEAKER_00]: begin to crop churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, these new-bending churches cropped up and appeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he appeals to them saying, I saw this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You experience this with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he starts with their shared experience, which, oh, by the way, if you're ever in a position where you need to resolve conflict, particularly theological conflict, or conflict with the church, this is the place to start.
[SPEAKER_00]: In your shared experience, or as Paul put it in Ephesians, starting with the one Lord, one faith, one baton and on and on, about the things that we agree with most centrally.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here, in the case of the Galatians, since he'd been so recently with them, it was their shared history in their coming to know Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We find that this is passionate.
[SPEAKER_00]: His twice uses the word foolish to describe them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word itself literally means foolish or unthinking or senseless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally we'd probably translate it, I'm thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that can sound a little sterile.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word was not sterile, emotionally sterile at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not a nice thing to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not a polite thing to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't call someone unthinking or foolish and then have them not react usually badly.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how passionate, how worked up that Paul is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I liken this very much to those of us who understand and have had children or even just have be held this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am never more angry than when I see my children charging for a busy street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I want to save them, but I am so mad because something has threatened their safety, and it was they themselves threatening it, and that absolutely drives me to an emotional fever pitch until I know that they're safe again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that that is the attitude that Paul has in hearing that his beloved Galatian brothers and sisters in the Lord are co-reading towards
[SPEAKER_00]: the i-twenty-five rush hour traffic of legalism.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could also bring to mind the dangers of the unthinking Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very easy for us as believers
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really crazy for humans in general to just begin to decide which authorities you'll accept and then unthinkingly accept everything that they say.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite simple to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even more common amongst Christians to say anyone who or think anyone who calls themselves a Christian must be worth listening to, must be worth mindlessly taking in everything that they have to say about what is truth and what it means to walk with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is an ultimate danger to every believer, whether it's things on the Christian radio or other believers you work with or whatever, or even most importantly, perhaps when we're here together, and I'm talking, everything needs to be measured against this word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything needs to get measured against the truth of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not an authority on the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that I do that's valuable, and I'd say the only thing that anyone does that's valuable, is points and clarifies and helps to apply the living and active word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please spend as much time as you can, evaluating those things which you hear tonight and assessing out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mistakes that I make, or the errors that I accidentally put in from what is the true and unwavering word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to be unthinking Christians, examine it, examine your faith, examine what you believe, and certainly examine what sources you take in.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, this biblical word foolish actually has a great biblical context.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could have pulled up dozens and dozens of verses, but we'll just pull up a few.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's Samuel talking to Saul after he disobeyed what the Lord told him to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you have acted foolishly.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you.
[SPEAKER_00]: For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew, seven, twenty-six reads, everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, of course, Jesus speaking, will be like a foolish man who has built his house on the sand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, Jesus speaking, and he said to them, oh foolish man and slow of heart to believe in all the prophets, all that the prophets have spoken.
[SPEAKER_00]: Foolishness is, biblically speaking, disregarding or disbelieving God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear so frequently, and it troubles me, that, oh, yeah, there's some truth in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to choose which parts of the Bible you're going to want to believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not the way this works, I'm afraid.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this is God's Word, then we believe every word of it, even when it's uncomfortable for us, even when it challenges what we want it to say or what we want God to believe, because ultimately, anytime that we set ourselves as the arbiter of what is true and what is false, we set ourselves in the position of judging God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's just be honest, be in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that sort of self worship, biblically speaking,
[SPEAKER_00]: is described by the word foolishness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it can happen, if a nice tie, a nice microphone, and it can happen before a church of ten, and before a church of a million, and it can happen in your home, and it can happen as you drive to work, as you go about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Biblically speaking, foolishness is refusing to submit to the inspired revealed word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: say that they're not just foolish, he says you actually be witched.
[SPEAKER_00]: We imagine one of these zombie movies where someone sees a friend or a loved one that has now been taken over by whatever forces taking people over.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that business, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's at least the picture I get.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is very much saying, who is bewitched you who's possessed your thinking, who's taken away your ability, you're not yourself anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's hypnotized you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's believed, who's bewitched you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's taken over your mind?
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea of, with bewitching someone actually has to do with the idea of the eye, or maybe even we'd say the evil eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really draws to mind, years before Mesmer and the system of hypnosis that followed came this idea of being able to look in someone's eyes and somehow control their will.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, who did this, who looked into your eyes and with almost a sense of bewitchment or magic took over your will, saying, you poor foolish, befuddled, bamboozled Galatians.
[SPEAKER_00]: The threat today is every bit as much present as it was for the Galatians then.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to remind you of the advantages that you have that the Galatians didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a Bible fully imprint that you can read in the language all absolutely clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have study Bibles.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have the completed Word of God and yet
[SPEAKER_00]: Even without even with all those advantages, believers will very frequently come into the same issue of being deceived, seemingly even bewitched by world thought, worldly thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Corinthians eleven three and thirteen through fifteen read.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be let astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I do not love you, God knows I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I am doing, I will continue to do so that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the matter about which they are boasting.
[SPEAKER_00]: For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as the apostles of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: and is a continuing feature as Peter warns us not false apostles because we don't have apostles not false prophets because that institution also is ceased at the end of the apostolic era.
[SPEAKER_00]: But false teachers of God's word are proliferate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Deception is something which all believers are vulnerable.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't just trust in your own mind, your own intelligence, your own, I can't trust in my own mind, my own intelligence to be able to discern what is true and what is false.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, quite frequently when I was working in the car dealership, we've got a sense pretty quick as to which car salesmen were honest and which ones were dishonest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought that I had people pretty well figured out until I went to buy a car.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of the honest ones was actually just able to slip by my radar.
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to think of ourselves as a good judge of character.
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to think of ourselves as being discerning to have a good meter for discerning what's true and what's false or when someone's lying to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We say things like, I'm not stupid or I'm pretty smart.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell when I'm being lied to.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you might be some of the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might be even most of the time, but the reality is is that every human being, especially every human being, apart from humility, is vulnerable to deception.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we might ask if that's the case, how can we avoid being deceived?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians four, we're going to read eleven through fifteen, tell us how we can avoid being deceived by this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul writing says he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors, some as teachers.
[SPEAKER_00]: All these gifts came to give the Word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the equipping and the saint of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until we all attain to the unity of the faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a result, we were no longer children tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by the craftiness and deceitful scheming.
[SPEAKER_00]: But speaking the truth and love, we were to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Catch that?
[SPEAKER_00]: by immersing yourself in the Word of God, you will be able to avoid deception.
[SPEAKER_00]: By immersing yourself and submitting ourselves to the Word of God, we are able to tell and discern what is true and what is false because we don't know some sort of version of the truth or some possibility or even some relativistic
[SPEAKER_00]: thought of truth or what's right and wrong, we have the authoritative, final and complete word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our exposure to and submission to this wonderful word is what enables us to avoid being deceived or tossed to and fro by the waves and winds of our circumstances.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hebrews tells us, Jesus is our anchor and He's revealed in this word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is referring back to the previous chapter here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's telling them how clearly they explained Christ's crucifixion, how clearly they laid out the gospel before them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reminding them again of the central point, the death of Jesus Christ on their behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying that this really is the center of the message and it will continue to be the center of the message until you are at home with He who is dead and rose again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul was clear with them about Christ's death and what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though they've been clearly told and taught about Christ's death,
[SPEAKER_00]: For them, they were for them, they were still deceived.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just getting the gospel information once is not a surefire or safeguard against being deceived.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having identified the problem, the questions continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Galatians three two says, this is the only thing I want to find out from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Galatians are being asked to go back to day one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The day they all became believers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, go back to that time when you first put your faith in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Holy Spirit's permanent and dwelling began for them on that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was at that moment that they were filled with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: That moment there was sealed with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was at that moment that the Holy Spirit began to operate inside them and not just around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could say so much about the privilege of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you go back and read through your Old Testament and read about David and read about Saul and read about the prophets and read about the people as they continue to try to figure out and try to learn what it meant to walk with Yahweh.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have an advantage in this Holy Spirit that they could only dream of.
[SPEAKER_00]: they didn't know what it was like to experience what you experience if you're a believer today on a day today moment by moment basis and Paul is drawing their attention to this insane privilege of the third member of the Trinity having taken up permanent residents within you and enabling you to live the life that God wants you to live he's provided for us completely and I think Paul is amazed that having been given
[SPEAKER_00]: This incredible honor and privilege that is so far beyond anything that a human could ask or imagine or hope for or dream or have the audacity to request of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're going to go back to following some rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: On what basis did they receive the Spirit?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it water baptism?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it their first communion?
[SPEAKER_00]: The first time they sat down and shared, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it when they got circumcised?
[SPEAKER_00]: Clearly not.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of them would have been circumcised at that point except for maybe the Jewish folks around that area.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once they'd committed to obeying any given set of laws or any law or even the law of Moses, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all received a Holy Spirit in the same way at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: They received a Spirit by the hearing of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the believing we could say trusting in Christ, believing that Christ payment was indeed for their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul knows the answer to his questions as well as the Galatians do.
[SPEAKER_00]: who knows exactly what the answer is because he was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had that personal experience with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw it happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a part of that process in God's plan for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were given the Holy Spirit on the basis of their trust and the good news and the gospel and the message that Jesus Christ had paid the penalty for their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when they received the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having begun in the salvation by God's grace, accepted through faith, how could it be continued through their own works?
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: The classic illustration would be flying in airplane.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to fly in an airplane not too long ago, and it was tons of fun, because we got to go over the Philippines.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the first sign of turbulence, I realized that that plane very much needed my help, and I needed to get out and push.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went and ran out and fell to my death.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's exactly what trying to continue finished perfect or grow in your salvation or grow spiritually by works of the law is doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's saying Jesus Christ and the rocket fear the jet fuel that he won for us at the cross is simply not enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to get out of the plane and push.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it results in exactly the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A spiritual spat on the pavement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what Paul is asking them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's asking them, I know those rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: They sound so attractive that whole life system of the law, that five ways, seven ways, ten ways to get to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: That surely has to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, at least it can't be a bad thing because it's keeping people from doing bad things, false.
[SPEAKER_00]: Completely false.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's making them do the worst thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes us do the worst thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes us take our eyes off Jesus and trust in ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the worst thing that can happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if everything that we do seems good from the outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of brings to mind, I spent many years in outreach and evangelism ministries, young life, particularly, which was wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: but we saw this happen very often.
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw a person grow to a place of understanding how horrible sin was and how great their guilt before a holy and righteous God was and then we told them about Jesus Christ and his death to pay for their sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: and how you would enable them to be restored to God and they were overjoyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: They found the love that they've been looking for there entire lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't stop talking about it everywhere they went.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd share the gospel with everyone they could.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd be overjoyed and unbelievably uncontainably in love with Jesus Christ that very quickly
[SPEAKER_00]: sometimes more quickly than others.
[SPEAKER_00]: It led to a sort of spiritual pride, starting to realize, well, maybe, I think I'm the best Christian I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that what I'm doing, whether it's through not doing these things or doing these other things, whether it's through our mess or their massive
[SPEAKER_00]: Loud mouthedness, as far as the gospel or whatever else it is, the commitment to not doing the bad things and to doing the good things, they begin to look at themselves, and they begin to become self-righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether they become diluted into believing that they are keeping the rules, even though anyone living with them could see that there's not a shred of love or grace evident in their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or whether they just become continually defeated by the fact that they cannot defeat or they cannot be sinless of their own actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: They come to a place that's even if possible as low as the place in which they started.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God is grace and is mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So often brings them back to their first love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Calls them back to say, yeah, you, you got a little bit enamored with yourself there, didn't you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Your own ability to do good things, your own ability to do, and whether you were fighting with it on the side of lying to yourself and legitimizing your sins, or you were on the side of being constantly defeated and wondering how you're gonna get, ever gonna get past this, or maybe wondering if you were ever saved at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that where you are today?
[SPEAKER_00]: either side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be lied to yourself and made yourself believe that you really are doing and following all of God's rules for you and that God owes you around of applause.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or are you repeatedly depressed and defeated
[SPEAKER_00]: by those sins, whether they're repeated sins, the repetitions sins that you do regularly or the regular ones, or maybe they're just something that's constantly surrounds you like an attitude of anger, or fear, or hatred.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's time to go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Revelation two, Paul, Jesus, sorry, addressing the church in Ephesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: telling them, hey, you guys are great at knowing what's true and what's false.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're really keeping up on your Bible study, you're great at evaluating all those false apostles.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have something against you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says therefore,
[SPEAKER_00]: Tells them, he's lost, they've lost their first love.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, therefore, remember from where you have fallen, repent, and do the deeds you did at first, or else I'm coming to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lampstand is to figure for their church body.
[SPEAKER_00]: The loveless church can absolutely have its light removed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about the salvation of individual believers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about a loveless church has no function in God's plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the same can be said for a loveless, graceless believer has no function, no positive function in God's plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're there, you'll encourage you to go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go back and consider the time, the day, the moment, the hour, the season, whatever it was that you met the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go back and do those things which you did at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go back and fall in love with the grace and love of Jesus Christ once again.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, moving on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Galatians three, four through five reads.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you suffer so many things in vain?
[SPEAKER_00]: If indeed it was in vain.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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?
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul asked them if they had suffered so much in vain.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know what kind of suffering that they underwent when they received the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Typically throughout this time, we know that many lost businesses, family, comfort, homes, possibly even their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: So undoubtedly, they had suffered much for this gospel of grace, which is very often surprising to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet,
[SPEAKER_00]: As my friend Mike Doyle and an elder dad at Hollywood said, Grace is the most hated thing or concept on this entire earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's grace humiliates man's pride and is the most hated thing on this earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: universally, the thing that man does not want to hear as individuals or corporately is you can't do it on your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must rely on the perfect provision that is forgiven to you in Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not strong enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need a Savior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man hates that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when the Savior is provided with no strings attached.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's grace will always be opposed by legalists, legalism, man-made religion, governments, culture, sin-nature, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be no end of things that oppose and forces that oppose and communities that oppose God's amazing grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was all for nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they're gonna abandon the one thing that made them offensive to the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did all this suffering and now you're just gonna surrender
[SPEAKER_00]: To their message, now you're just going to surrender to all that which basically nullifying and saying that everything that you suffered for grace was a waste of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so much easier to just compromise with the legalism of the culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Law or faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, Paul again draws a dichotomy between the works of the law and the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's again drawing this
[SPEAKER_00]: form solid black line saying it's either this or that not both.
[SPEAKER_00]: twice reiterated in the last chapter, and twice here, this is important.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul's seeing fit to repeat himself this frequently by the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ought to pay attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: The righteousness of faith and the righteousness of the law are mutually exclusive.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no room for a both-and-type of faith according to Paul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a compromise, not a mix, it's either one or the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that you trust in Christ's righteousness for you or you're going to try to work for a righteousness of your own that gives you a pat on the back.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't hold on to both.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't have both.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because grabbing onto Christ's righteousness, receiving that fruit faith means a complete abandonment of our own righteousness and our own self-righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ's righteousness or mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I have to ask myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And continuing in growth is a believer.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I have to continue to ask myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it Christ's righteousness that matters or is it my righteousness that matters?
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul's eyes, this is clearly not an issue with any room for error.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not an, ah, well, you know, a little bit of law, you know, will keep the devil away.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, there is no room for compromise and Paul's view.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's just, if it keeps you from doing these three bad things, no, no room for error.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything short of relying on Christ and what He has done for and in and is continuing to do in you falls short of what God needs.
[SPEAKER_00]: you to realize if you're going to be a part of bringing about and bringing forth the works that are rewarding to him, his works within you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I just wanted to close our sermon by reminding you of the incredible parallel between the book of Galatians and Romans.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans one through three describes our need, our need,
[SPEAKER_00]: For God, our sin and our complete inability to approach Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans four through five tells us of God's provision for us in Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans six tells us about our freedom, our co-cruise fiction, our immersion into his death burial resurrection, and our ability to walk in newness of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans seven is very interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It tells us what happens when the believer tries to go back to his own works or righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul never alludes to the fact that when he goes back to try to be righteous by his works of the law that his salvation was in question, what he does say is that it brings him to a place of utter loss, misery, closing with the statement of a wretched man that I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so many believers today are stuck internally in Romans seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having been saved by grace, they're trying to work, we're trying to work, we're trying to prove to God that we were a good investment.
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't get over it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to rest in what He has done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Romans eight,
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul has brought back to the grace of God, seeing clearly that there is therefore now no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So do we really believe this gospel?
[SPEAKER_00]: You did at one point, I'd dearly hope if you haven't today is a great day to believe in God's provision for you to return to Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even as believers, we find that this information is deeper, larger, richer than we ever first imagined.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we really believe that in our flesh dwells no good thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that even if we can fake it for a couple hours or even a couple days or weeks that what we bring forth has no merit before God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would we deny that and say, I can try a little bit harder, I can do a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Getting right to the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: We accept his righteousness, or do we still hang on to our, I'm better than you religion, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what mad made religion is designed for.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never did that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe that horrible person did that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would never do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe they would say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would never say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm better than you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I follow my rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ did not come to earth and die so that we could feel better than one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: We feel righter than one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: Came that we might show his love, his life, his grace, and the joy of a life of one forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we're not doing that, then we fall short of what is intended for us to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians two eight nine says, for by grace you've been saved through faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for this tremendous gift and blessing for this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: that you won for us by the work of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're so thankful for you and for all that you've done for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray that as we go about this next moment that you would hear a praise of you and be glorified in the fact that we rely wholly and completely on all that you've done in our doing for us in Christ Jesus our Lord and whose name we pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.