Active Belief in the Gospel

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

There. All right. We are going to continue our study on the book of Galatians. And so, if you want to turn there with me, we're going to be in Galatians chapter 3, verses 1 through 9 today. Galatians 3, 1 through 9. And to kind of cover where we've been real quick, we find a church, or churches, actually, in Galatia. So, Galatia is like a region. Like, it'd be like writing a letter to the churches of Johnson County or the churches of Tarrant County. It's a group of churches that this one letter is written to, is addressed to, and it's meant to be circulated among all the churches. And so these churches are turning away from the gospel.

The gospel clearly stated in Galatians 1, 3 and 4 that Jesus gave himself to set them free. And so last week we saw a little bit more of the problem. In fact, we, we kind of got to the core of the apple. We, we got to the reason why this letter was written in the first place. And that is in the middle of chapter two, we find that Jewish leaders, including Peter and James and even Barnabas, they were illustrating a different gospel. They were, they were living their life in a way that did not square with the gospel. And so essentially what they were saying was that we are made right by obeying the Old Testament. We are made right by obeying the Old Testament. Now that was the big problem. In answer though, in answer, the rest of chapter two, Paul makes a bold statement. He says that Jesus, he says that we are made right by Jesus's life and death. Jesus's life and death. Now let me take a moment

to clarify something I said last week and I got a few questions about it and I thought I would just answer them clearly. And it's going to help us on our journey this morning. Last week I said that Jesus, that we are made right because Jesus lives your life for you. Okay. Jesus lives your life for you. And that can obviously, that can bring up a lot of questions, right? Like if Jesus is living for me, then what happens whenever I sinned? If Jesus is living for me, then why do I experience failure? The Bible puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 13 5, it says, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Ephesians 3 17, that Christ dwells in our hearts through faith. Colossians 1 27, that Christ is in you and that that is your hope for the future.

That Christ is in you. But really to talk about this, I think we just need an illustration. And I couldn't think of anything stranger than Michael Jordan. Let's just pretend that you have the spirit of Michael Jordan in you. And I don't mean to blaspheme and I don't mean to make light of what the word's saying. I'm trying to help us understand what the word's saying. Okay. So just for the moment, I realized Michael Jordan is not God. Um, the spirit of Michael Jordan is in you. Okay. Now, you know, if the spirit of Michael Jordan is in you, then you're going to be one of the greatest basketball players that's ever lived. Right. You're, you're going to be, you know, unimaginably good at basketball. You're going to be better at basketball than you are right now. If you have the spirit of Michael Jordan in you. Now, yes, you need to display faith. if you need to actually pick up a basketball and shoot it,

like you need to actually do that. But when you are filled with the spirit of Michael Jordan and you have a good game, you have a really good game, you win, you score the most points, and people are saying, oh, that was such a great game, but you had, you are not taking credit for that game. You're not, you're gonna say, well, I mean, I have the spirit of Michael Jordan, So of course I'm gonna do that. And when you have a bad game, what are you gonna say? You're gonna say, hey, I need to rely more, I need to lean in more to the spirit of Michael Jordan. I need to do that. And if you claim to have the spirit of Michael Jordan in you but you never ever have a good game of basketball despite trying to play, I would question your claim. And so when I say, and when scripture says, and when we looked at it last week, Jesus lives your life for you, as Galatians 2:20 says, I've been crucified with Christ, nevertheless

I live. It's not I, but Christ living in me, and the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. Okay? When we say that, it means that God lives in you, and that all the resurrection power, thing that raised Jesus from the dead, talking about Ephesians 1, 19, and 20, all that resurrection power is residing in you, is powering what is going on inside of you. Yes, you need to express faith. Yes, if you have the spirit of Michael Jordan, you need to pick up a basketball and shoot. If we have the spirit of God living in us, yes, we need to cooperate with that spirit. But when you grow spiritually, when you see victory, when you experience fruit, you're not taking credit for that. Or you shouldn't. This isn't something you're doing. You have the Spirit of the living God inside of you. How are you taking credit for something good that you did?

However, what happens on the other side? What about whenever you fall into temptation, you give into temptation, or whenever you fall into like just a trap of sin, the remedy is leaning into the spirit of the living God more. This is why we have called this series Breaking Free, and not just freedom, okay? Galatians just talk about freedom as a nebulous concept. It talks about breaking free in a continual fashion. The freedom that Jesus gives invites us to cooperate with that freedom. It is a continual breaking free from sin. It is not just a one-time deliverance, it is also an ongoing thing where you develop, you grow as a Christian, you see victory over sin. And this is exactly where the gospel comes in. This is what we're going to be exploring today as we look at the beginning of Galatians 3. And in Galatians 3 verse 1, there's a switch before he was kind of talking about what happened.

He was kind of just talking through a few things. He was outlining a disagreement that he had with Peter. But in chapter 3, verse 1, we see Paul addressing these Galatian churches directly. And it's not fun. It says, Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. The church here, what's going on? They are actively believing, and we're going to be saying that a few times today, actively believing a distorted gospel. They were actively believing a distorted gospel. And so to, the reason I'm saying active belief is I'm trying to highlight the Galatians' error. I'm trying to highlight what's highlighted in Galatians 3, and that it's active belief. talk a little bit more about that, but I'm using that phrase, active belief in the gospel, particularly. So he's saying, he's saying, look, the gospel was clearly preached to you,

yet you have been tricked. Yet, like it says in Galatians 2:14, you are not walking in step with the truth of the gospel. And to dig deeper on what's going on actually in the hearts and minds of the Galatian churches, of the people in the Galatian churches, he begins to ask a series of rhetorical questions. And we're going to look at them in groups in three different phases. We're going to begin with verse 2. It says, let me ask you only this, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? And so to point out their distorted gospel, He begins with, how did you become a Christian in the first place?

How did that happen? And he gives them two choices, works of the law or hearing with faith. Another way to say that would be is, did you become a Christian by following rules? Did you become a Christian by practicing a certain ritual? By following a certain set of laws? Is that how you became a Christian? The answer is obviously no. You became a Christian by believing what you heard. You became a Christian Because you had active belief in the gospel Active belief in the gospel you became a Christian through active belief in the gospel. This is one of the core truths of the Bible Nobody really disputes this right? We became a Christian. We received the spirit by active belief It wasn't just passive belief. We didn't just sit there and go well, maybe it's true I don't know, like a shrug or something. No, it was active. We had to cooperate with what the Lord was doing. This is in fact why we have a response time during our church services.

This is why we set aside time where we sing multiple songs where we as a body can respond to what God is saying to us through His word, what God is saying to us through His Spirit. And so when we respond, this is active belief. And we became a Christian that way. And I really want you to hear the distinction here. It's saying that you cooperated with the Spirit by actively believing the gospel. You did not cooperate by following a law. That's not the point here. This is the first question we're going to keep going, Galatians 3, 3 through 4. It says, are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain if indeed it was in vain? So we have a shift here. We're moving from the past. How did you become a Christian? In verse 2. To the present. Having begun, are you now being perfected? So he's shifting the question.

Verse 2. How did it happen in the first place? Verses 3 through 4. Having started there, what's happening now? He's saying you started by actively believing the gospel. You actively followed the Spirit, but now you're off course. So how do we get off course? We get off course by changing the object of our active belief. You get off course by changing the object of your active belief. Now let me just make a small distinction here. When I'm talking about active belief, I'm not talking about passive belief, I'm not talking about what you would acknowledge in a survey, right? Did Jesus die for you? Yes. Did, you know, just kind of these gospel truths that are true and we should respond in the affirmative. However, on a day-to-day level, on a decision-by-decision level, we are not believing, we're not actively believing what the Lord has told us. To illustrate this,

I want to kind of invite you into an extended metaphor, so bear with me. Let's pretend, Let's just say every day you walk to work. Okay, I know some of you were like, yeah, I really have to pretend right now. Okay, every day you walk to work. And every day when you walk to work, you cross a wooden bridge. Okay, when you first started crossing that wooden bridge, you kind of, you kind of looked at it. You took a couple of steps on it, you kind of bounced a little bit. Does this feel sturdy? It looks sturdy. I'm gonna walk across it. Okay, you feel secure in it. So you cross that bridge every day to go to work, but then after years of crossing, you hear of a nearby wooden bridge collapsing. Just collapsed. Three people died. It was really terrible. It collapsed. And with that, upon hearing that, you begin to question your own bridge's sturdiness.

You wonder, is it going to happen to me? is my bridge going to collapse? And so to continue crossing safely, you take a couple of pieces of lumber and a couple of tools and you go down to the base, to the supports of the bridge, and you throw some more wood on there, you throw some more nails on there, you throw a couple more braces on there, you get your engineer friend, you come and he says, does this look secure? Oh yeah, yeah, this looks secure. And so you secure it more and you feel better about it. However, it's not long until you're wondering again, did I do enough to secure this bridge? Did I put enough wood down? Did I do it right? Did my engineer friend know what he was talking about? Can I continue crossing this bridge like I did before?

Can I do that? Let me step out of the metaphor for just a second. When we first become Christians, there is a sense of overwhelming security. We feel the Lord's presence. We remember, the Bible talks about the joy of our salvation, right, returning to our first love, okay? When we first become Christians, there is an amazing sense of security and we have this active belief in the gospel. We have this active belief that the Lord loves us and we're secure in that. The Lord accepts us just like we are. And we're secure in that. However, doubt begins to creep in. Maybe we begin to compare our spiritual maturity to other people's. Maybe we turn disappointment into a reason not to trust Jesus as much. And we begin to wonder over time, you know what, maybe it's just time and distraction. It doesn't take much. And we begin to wonder, am I as close to Jesus as I was before?

Are things as secure? It doesn't feel the same. I'm older now. I know more about the world. Maybe, maybe I missed something. Look, I'm 42. I haven't been on this earth that long, but I've been around a little bit longer than some. And I've gone through this. I've gone through that season, right? I know that most of you have. You've gone through this season where you just experience a little bit of blah, a little bit of maybe some distance between you and the Lord and you actively wonder like, am I still a Christian? Is this still something that is true of me? And we don't really know how to deal with that. And so in an attempt, in an attempt to make our relationship with Jesus more secure, we begin to change the object of our active belief. We go from the gospel to ourselves. We actively believe in ourselves. Let me give you an example for how this works itself out.

And I'll do a comparison. As a new believer, we'll take prayer as the example, okay? As a new believer, prayer, I mean, that's almost instinctual, right? As a new believer, actively believing that Jesus called us and gave us his spirit, it just fuels prayer, right? Prayer is almost this natural response to all that God has done in your life. Okay, now fast forward, you've gone through a season of doubt, you've gone through a season of insecurity, right? And you begin to wonder about your relationship with Jesus. It doesn't feel the same, then you have an idea. Maybe I should pray more. Now I'm not against prayer. I'm not against prayer, but when you make that shift by saying, hey, it doesn't feel as good, maybe I'm going to try to work harder to secure my relationship with Jesus. Right there, you have switched from actively believing in the gospel to actively believing

in yourself because it doesn't feel the same. So you say, my relationship with Jesus doesn't feel very stable and so you pray, but it's only because you want to feel more stable. You pray, but it's in this hope that somehow this worry is just gonna go away, or this doubt is gonna go away, and you pray, but it's only for feeling better. And what you will find, inevitably, is that these prayers will not do the trick. These prayers will not just magically erase whatever doubt you have going on.

And you will find actually as you read scripture, the Lord intends that season that you're in of doubt to build something in you. God is not afraid of you going through a season like that. God wants to speak to you in a season like that. God wants to take your pain, your disillusionment, your frustration, and speak into it. He doesn't just want to save you from never having to deal with it.

He actually wants you to deal with it and He is unafraid. And when you find, if you are praying just to make yourself feel better, you will find those prayers don't do the trick. You will feel disillusioned. Ultimately, you will stop praying. If you continue on that track, it's going to hinder your faith. And maybe more broadly put, right outside of prayer, let's put it more broadly. At no point in your Christian walk do you need to shift gears and start doing things differently just to keep Jesus around. Let me say that again. At no point in your walk spiritually do you need to shift gears just to keep Jesus around, just to keep feeling the same. It's not up to you. And what we see in Galatians 3, what we're starting to see developed, is that you continue the same way that you started.

Active belief in the gospel. Active belief. And so when it comes to prayer, we resist the temptation to try to leverage Jesus. We resist the temptation to do that. True prayer is always a response to Jesus calling us, calling us to his spirit working in us, just like it was at first. Then we see this idea developed more in verse five. Galatians 3, five. Does he who supplies the spirit to you and work miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? That's our third rhetorical question, third group of them. The first set in verse two was the past, how did it begin? Verse three and four was the present. Do you think that changing course would work for you? It doesn't, you continue the same way you started. And then in verse five, we have this sense of like an ongoing, how will this continue to go? How does God work in you? Verse five says, God supplies the spirit,

God works in your heart, God brings up points of conversation with people in a grocery line. God brings up things that you discuss in a life group that are totally what you needed to hear. God works miracles among you. God gives us His Spirit when we hear the gospel and believe. Not when we pray a certain way, not whenever we are only when we're having our quiet time, five days in a row, or only whenever we haven't missed church at all, or only whenever. It's not up to us. It's not. And Galatians 3:5 is making this point ever so strongly. And if you're wondering how strong, just look at verse 4, it said, Did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain. What he's saying is, if you are trying to shift gears, and if you are trying to earn Jesus's approval, or trying to do something to make yourself feel more secure in Jesus, It won't work. In fact, it's vanity and it's actually going to flush the whole thing down the drain.

Don't do it. God supplies the Spirit and works among you when you hear the gospel and believe. In other words, active belief in the gospel is fueled by gospel truth. In other words, when we get off course, it's because we believe the lie that it's up to us. When we get our course, it's because we believe the lie that it's up to us. It is no coincidence that every time we gather, every time, whether it's me or anybody else, we preach the Word of God. I am not a motivational speaker. I'm not even that winsome. You can ask my friends and family. However, this Word, the Word of God, when it is proclaimed and when you hear it and actively believe it, that is spiritual growth. That will help you over whatever you're dealing with. When you hear with faith, the spirit works in your heart and births something new, just like when you first became a Christian. Think about how you became a Christian.

You heard the gospel somewhere. You saw it demonstrated somehow. You saw these Christians acting a certain way and you thought, Oh, that's a little strange. Oh, what's going on with them? And then you heard the gospel and something made sense. And Jesus revealed Himself to you and you thought, Oh my word, how did I miss this the whole time? Jesus is real. And I've missed it. What an amazing thing! That is the exact same way that you grow in Christian faith. Is that you are praying, you are asking Jesus, reveal yourself to me in this situation, show me where I need to listen to you, help me make a decision, help me be humble. If you believe that it's up to you, it's a lie. And you will not grow. The gospel truth is God is working in you, and God is in control. And for evidence, Galatians 3, 6 brings up Abraham. It says, just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

That's a really big deal because Abraham hadn't done jack to earn anything with God. Abraham hadn't done anything yet. He hadn't followed anything. He hadn't heard any rules. He hadn't performed any rituals. Nothing like that. When God said, and this is the particular response right here, is whenever in Genesis, God is saying to Abraham, I will make your descendants more numerous than the sands on the shore, more numerous than the stars in the sky. I'm going to give you that many descendants. Abraham was 90 something and had no kids. And what did he do? He believed God. And it was counted to him as righteousness. What has the Lord told you? The Lord has told you, I will take you and I will make you new. I will change your life. I will birth something in you that will continue to grow. I will turn you into a new person. You will spend eternity with me. The gospel rewrites your history, it rewrites your present,

and it rewrites your future. And when you believe, actively, when you believe, it will also be counted to you as righteousness, nothing that you did beyond that. So, active belief in the gospel, how does it look today? Well, hearing gospel truth on a Sunday morning is a great place to start. I'm glad we're here. This is a great first step. This is good. But we need that steady stream of gospel truth. We need people in our lives to continue to encourage us with the gospel, with gospel truth. See, sometimes we think about the gospel and we think it's the thing we believe that saves us, period. But the gospel is not just the door that leads out. The gospel is also the path that leads home. The gospel is not just the ABCs, not just the introductory course, it's also the A to Z. It's both. It's the thing that saves us and the thing that as we continue to lean into it,

as we continue to lean in the Spirit of God, it will grow us. To state verse five in a different way, if we want to see God supply the Spirit, and if we want to see God work miracles among us in increasing measure, then what we need to do is rehearse the truth of the gospel and apply it and rehearse it and apply it and rehearse it and apply it. We can't do that on our own. That's part why we have life groups. That's why we have gospel course. That's why we have connect groups. Sunday school. That's why we have those things because we need people that know us, that are listening to us, that are saying to us, hey, you remember how you keep making that same mistake? Here's the truth that you're ignoring, and they do it in love. So we talk about breaking free.

And if you're ready to begin breaking free, we are gonna have a time of response. The gospel truth is that Jesus lives in you if you follow him. And Jesus urges you toward love. You can break free from sin's grasp. You can break free from needing others approval to be okay. You can break free from measuring your life by your legacy. You can break free from comparing yourself to others because the gospel truth is that you are loved and accepted and valued by God way more than you deserve. Me too. That's part of why that truth is so beautiful. And so if you're ready to begin breaking free, if you wanna take that first step, I wanna encourage you, we're gonna have a time of singing, where we're gonna just be standing and singing together. And I'm gonna be up here, right over here, just kind of off to the side, my right, your left. And if you want to come, and you wanna take that next step in breaking free,

I would encourage you, just meet me up here. We can talk, if we just pray together, and then you go sit back down, that's cool. I'm not gonna have to parade you in front of everybody. But if you want to make a decision to join our church, if you want to make a decision to follow the Lord, if you want to make a decision to be baptized. So Sean and Cheryl are baptized today, glory. We got two more baptisms coming up next week. I'm excited about that. And if there are some of you that want to be baptized, or have questions about it, please come up and talk to me. We're going to be singing three songs. And as we do, I would just consider doing that, Consider taking that step and praying and reaching out to the Lord, just like you did at first or maybe just like you need to do for the very first time. Let me pray for us. Jesus, we thank you for your heart. We thank you for your relentless love.

Thank you for the way that you come after us. I pray that you would help us to see all that you're doing in us. I pray that you could help us to develop gratitude for what you're doing in us and through us. Help us, Jesus. Help us to listen and respond. That's your name that we pray. Amen. As we respond, why don't you go ahead and stand just for the next 10 minutes, just for these few songs, let's do our best to not think about what we got to do to get ready for tomorrow. All the things that overwhelm us and are weak, but that we can just focus on Lord Jesus for this next few minutes, what he's done. We can focus on leaning into the gospel and what that looks like, not relying on ourselves, and just asking the Lord to speak to our hearts. Are you hurting or broken? I'm a failed Bible reader of your sin Jesus is coming, come to the end of yourself Do you thirst for my dream from the world?

Jesus is coming, come to the altar The Father's arms are open wide The forgiveness was bothered The precious blood Jesus cried Come today there's no reason to wait Jesus is coming Bring your sorrows from trading Joy from the ashes of his boy Jesus has done Come to the altar The Father's arms are open Forgiveness will spot with the precious God of Jesus O come to the altar, the Father's arms are open wide. The forgiveness was brought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. What a Savior is in here, yeah Christ is risen bow down before God Christ is risen, what a Savior is in here, wonderful Christ is risen Bow down before Him Hallelujah Christ is risen Come to the altar The Father's arms are open wide For this is God with the precious man, Jesus Christ.