Your were Running a Good Race

 Read Galatians 5

 

So where have we been so far? There is no other gospel.

Salvation is by grace through faith.

The law is no longer our guardian or governor.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

You foolish Galatians, did you really think that the law could do what Christ Jesus himself has done for you? If the law could get you to salvation, Christ died for nothing.

Then comes one of my favorite expressions in the New Testament.  You were running a good race.  Who cut you off?  Who cut in on you? Who got your off course?

The Galatian believers had come to know Christ Jesus through faith alone.  Now someone had told them that wasn’t enough.  Their salvation was in jeopardy.  You had better get circumcised and follow at least some of the law.  You need Jesus Plus. You need Jesus 2.0. What you believe is too good to be true.

Realize that these are mostly God’s Chosen People enticing new believers to come under the governorship of the law. Why?  Because the salvation that they knew came from a love that is incomprehensible.  God’s people couldn’t believe how great God’s love was—how great his love is.

God’s Chosen people missed the boat on knowing God’s love.  Their mindset was God is rules.  We know that God is love. Understanding this, we know that God’s rules come out of love and are for our own God, but they are not our master.

This salvation that we know comes completely out of God’s heart. He loves us.  He will never stop loving us.  He made a way and paid the price for our right-standing with him.  Jesus paid it all.  All to Him I owe.

Paul told us the same thing that James did.  If you choose to live by the law, then you must abide by the entire law.  That’s something that nobody other than Jesus has even been able to do.

You can live by the law and continually fall short of God’s glory or you can live by love and by the Spirit of God that lives within you now.  It is just that simple.

The law or the Spirit?  Paul offered a provocation for those who insisted on living by the law.  The topic was circumcision.  Paul said why don’t you just cut off the whole business and show your commitment to the law. 

I have the same thoughts every time I see a man competing in women’s sports because he identifies as a woman.  Why don’t you show how dedicated you are to competing in women’s sports and cut off the whole business? 

Paul said why don’t you just emasculate yourselves?  Ouch!

If you think you must obey the law to complete your salvation, then you are alienating yourselves from Christ.  You are setting yourselves up for the words, I don’t know you. I never knew you. That’s a double ouch.

Should we practice the law as a guide to good living? Of course.  There is much of it that we should fulfill literally—word for word.  Don’t murder comes to mind right away.

Much of the law we fulfill by loving one another.  Love God and love one another are the commands on which all of the law rests.

We must always know that our salvation is the gift of God, no ifs, ands, or buts.  It’s a gift.

Now that we are saved, we are called to live by the Spirit of God that has taken up residence inside of us. 

Now that we are saved, we enjoy our freedom and we engage in war.  It’s a paradox. We are saved to fully live but not to give in to the desires of the flesh.  The flesh and the Spirit are at war.

We are free but we must fight to live in that freedom.  Most of those battles take place in the mind.  What is it that you desire the most? What do you seek?

To please yourself or to please God? Is it eat, drink, and be merry or seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness first?

We can enjoy this life and serve God but we must always put God first if we are truly living in the freedom that he gave us and not desiring to return to having sin as our master.

Listen to Paul’s words once again.

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Had we started this journey with Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth, we would have heard this explained this way.

All things are permitted for me, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

What does Paul mean by gratifying the flesh?

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Didn’t the law warn us against these things as well? It’s not that we must comply with a list of rules so we don’t go to hell.  It’s the Spirit of God that lives within us leads us to good living.  Like what? 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Let us live by the Spirit of God that is within us.  If we will just trust God and quit fighting him when he directs our steps, we will produce good fruit:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

We touched on each of these in the first service, for now we consider them collectively.

How do you know if you are winning the war between flesh and spirit?  Look at your fruit. Are you constantly in the middle of discord, jealousy, and rage?  Are you seeking to forget this world through debauchery or drunkenness?  Do hateful thoughts and emotions come back to you time and again? Is everything you do just for you and yours?

Or, and this is a big or, do you know love and joy?  Do you have a sense of peace that the world cannot understand? Do you practice self-control? Are you patient like your Father in heaven?

Let’s put this in terms you have heard many times.  Have you crucified the passions of the flesh?  Does Christ live in you?

When we say, I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me, that’s what we are saying.  Is that true for us?

It seems to be such a black-and-white dichotomy, but there is a struggle. It should just be the old self is gone and the new person lives in me.  Christ lives in me.

Paul says, I get it.  We are at war with the flesh while we try to live in the Spirit.  Paul has a recurring theme of having already attained something but not yet.

I live by the Spirit but I struggle with the flesh.  I have been given right-standing with God but I struggle to live up to what he gave me.

Welcome to life.  Welcome to real life.  Welcome to abundant life. The answers come with having the law as a mentor and friend and not as your master.  Jesus is your Master.  He is Lord.  We are known as his disciples by our love.

The law may guide you but once you start living by the law because you question the gift of God that we call grace, we invite sin back into our lives. The law can either be your friend or your governor, but not both.

Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe.  Our response to this great gift is to live by the Spirit that he placed with us. It is to live by the Spirit and manifest the fruit of love.  This is how we are to live.

Once you begin to run this race, don’t let anyone or anything cut you off.  Don’t let anyone entice you back into slavery because they cannot see the great love of God that we know.

Amen.

The Fruit of the Spirit is...

 Read Galatians 5

So where have we been so far? There is no other gospel.

Salvation is by grace through faith.

The law is no longer our guardian or governor. I like to say it’s our mentor or guide to good living.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

You foolish Galatians, did you really think that the law could do what Christ Jesus himself has done for you? If the law could get you to salvation, Christ died for nothing.

I could talk more about circumcision and living by the law, but let’s just jump to the good part.  What’s that?  The fruit of the Spirit, of course.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

The fruit of the Spirit is in concert with what Paul will call a new creation or new creature in other writings.  We are new.  The old is gone.  The new is here.

We died to the flesh.  We were crucified with Christ.  Now the Spirit of Christ lives within me.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

So the Spirit of God, of Christ lives within me—what then will I produce as good fruit?

Let’s start with love.  Back in the day, punctuation wasn’t a big thing.  In fact, it wasn’t much of a thing at all.  One way to read this scripture would be to place a colon after the word love.  It would go like this.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love: joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

The fruit of the Spirit is love.  Those other things listed are aspects of love—joy and peace, patience and kindness, goodness and faithfulness, and gentleness and self-control.

That’s one way to look at it, or we can consider all as stand-alone qualities—the fruit of the Spirit if you will.

When we think of love, think of the scripture that says greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.

Jesus told us to be known by our love and he told us to love like he did.  Jesus showed us love by washing feet, healing the sick, speaking the truth to a lost people, and giving his own life for us.

When we think love, think what good is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul? Love is to take the lowly position of a servant in this life and trust that God will reward you in the next.

When we think of the fruit we call love, it is a fruit of giving and sacrifice and service.

Love is manifest in joy, even when we are sacrificing.  Our joy is in the Lord and not in our circumstances.

Love is manifest in peace.  We have a peace that goes beyond our own understanding and surely baffles the world.  We can be a humble servant in this world and know more peace than the richest or most powerful person on the planet.

Love is manifest in patience.  Let’s skip that one. I don’t have time to be patient.  Patience has to be a real challenge in the age of immediate gratification.  Patience is taking the trials of life in the context of eternity while still living in the moment.

If you can exhibit patience in this modern century, the Spirit of God must be at work in you.  That patience also applies to trusting God for answers to our prayers.

Our love is manifest in our kindness and goodness when the world says look out for number one first and foremost.  Our love is manifest in kindness when the world is doing it’s best to make us transactional.

Our love is manifest in our goodness because we know that every human has a sinful nature and we can only be good by surrendering to God’s nature.

We see love manifest in our gentleness.  We may need to speak the truth in love and that truth may be uncomfortable, but we can deliver it with the fruit of gentleness. 

The last noted fruit that I would say is also a manifestation of love is self-control.  How good is your self-control?  Drive on the interstate for an hour.  Do you feel like killing someone or can you continue your journey without thinking about who deserves what or conveying digital signals?

My cruise control automatically puts a safe distance between the car that just cut into the space-and-a-half between cars so it could arrive three-tenths of a second ahead of me. Left to my own devices, I might be riding that car’s bumper for the next few miles.

Sometimes it’s hard not to gratify the flesh.  That’s why we must surrender completely to God’s Spirit that lives within us.

Paul notes there is a battle between flesh and spirit.  Jesus having experienced human flesh for over three decades noted that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

How do you know if you are winning the battle?  Look for the fruit of the Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Amen.

Don't buy the Snake Oil

 Read Galatians 4

The churches in Galatia had known the truth but were then sold a bill of goods by some very aggressive salesmen. You probably know the drill.

Do you like vacations? Yes.

Do you like tropical vacations? Yes.

Do you like free stuff included in your vacations? Yes.

Do you like fried liver? No.

Would you like a vacation where they don’t serve fried liver? Yes.

Please sign here and put your credit card number here and you can have a vacation to the tropics every year and will never see fried liver again.  Some conditions apply.

The zealous salesman has no reprehension about using red herrings and nonsequiturs in his pitch.  He just wants to make a sale.  The Judaizers wanted to make sales.  They wanted converts.  They were recruiting. They wanted their religion back.

Jesus came and fulfilled the law, died for our sins, rose from the dead and offers us life eternal by the grace of God which we receive by faith.

The Judaizers said, that’s too good to be true.  You need to buttress your belief with some religion.  Faith alone can’t do this.  You need to circumcise your males, stick to the seventh-day Sabbath, and start observing the festivals that God established. Then, your faith might be worth something.

But this saved by the grace of God stuff won’t cut it. Paul said, “I’m calling Horsehockey on that.” Listen again to what Paul has to say.

Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them.  It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I am with you. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!

Paul uses the analogy of birth pains.  You should only go through them once per child, but these Galatians who were born of the Spirit seem to have crawled back in the womb. 

You were free from sin and death!  You lived by faith!  You knew the truth!  I am at a loss as to how you were fooled.

The chapter headings sometimes work against us.  This is a letter best read as a whole, but in the age of memes and tweets limited to 256 characters, that seems ambitious.  What’s my point?

If we continue into the next chapter, Paul gives us these words.

You were running a good race.  Who cut you off?

How could you fall for the sales pitch?

Let’s leave the Galatians alone for a while.  Paul gave them their chewing out.  We won’t add to it, but what can we learn from it?

How about you know the truth.  Your salvation is a gift from God.  You did not earn, nor could you do anything to earn it. You did not deserve it but God loved you so much that he made you right with him and he made the sacrifice that atoned for your sins himself.

God did it all.  We received this wonderful gift by faith.

Even today, there are those who will challenge this and offer arguments as to why they are right.  There is this one online site that likes to discredit New Testament scripture by saying that the gospels were not yet in written form and couldn’t be useful for teaching or rebuking or training in righteousness.  They couldn’t be God-breathed.  They couldn’t be living and active.

Why?  They were not in print yet.  It sounds convincing.  The posts are not nearly as direct as my explanation because the modern-day Judaizers want your mind to make the leap from they were not available in written form yet to all references to scripture are only to Old Testament scriptures.

I’m not sure if this is more of a red herring or a non sequitur, but the logic fails upon examination.  Most of the Old Testament was not put into writing for about 3,000 years or more.  So, was there no scripture during this time?

We should ask ourselves why does the word of God need to use the tools of the Father of Lies to make its point?  That’s a rhetorical question.  The word of God stands alone and does not need anything to buttress it.

Now some of you were thinking that we are supposed to be beating up on the Galatians, but Tom wants to talk about critical thinking.  What gives?

You do remember that God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.  I’m talking about using your sound mind so that you are not deceived.  God gave you a mind.  Use it.  Sharpen it to the point that you don’t fall for the tricks of the Father of Lies.

Like what?  Let’s try belief bias.  It was used a lot to fit scriptures into support for the BLM movement.  First, let me say that I think we should do whatever we can to abide in human dignity for all and raise up those who carry unnecessary burdens, well, everything except pervert God’s word.

How do they pervert God’s word?  They make subtle changes to the scripture to fit the narrative.  They make the scripture support their existing belief.  This can also be confirmation bias.

There is a logical fallacy called the strawman that misrepresents an argument to be countered. It’s used all of the time. What example do we see frequently that connects to this letter to the Galatian churches?  The strawman argument is that people believe that the law was nailed to the cross and done away with. 

The only people who believe this are those who don’t read their Bibles or try to fit the scripture into their existing beliefs (confirmation bias).  It is also eisegetical—fitting your beliefs into God’s words instead of extracting God’s intended meaning from them.

We should understand that this misrepresentation is used by some to make points that they cannot make effectively with logic and critical thinking. 

Our sin, the invoice for our sin, the bill for our sinful selves was nailed to the cross.  The law still shows us our sin. Don’t worry, we will get to this part when we reach Paul’s letter to the Colossians.

Why is this important?  If you let someone misrepresent the premise, they can prove anything they want.  The logic is:  If the premise is false, everything thereafter may be proven to be true.

Why should you care about red herrings and nonsequiturs?  Why must I be aware of the framing effect or begging the question?

Consider these words from the previous chapter:  You foolish Galatians.

God gave you a sound mind.  Do not surrender it to logical fallacies and cognitive biases. You know the truth.  Don’t let anyone add or detract from it, no matter how good of a snake oil salesman they might be.

I would love to talk metacognition all day, but let’s bring this home.

You must know—be fully convinced in your own mind—that your salvation is 100% the gift of God.  Do not be persuaded otherwise.

Don’t buy the snake oil

Amen.

 

When the fullness of time had come

 Read Galatians 4

How many creation stories are there in the Bible?

There is, of course, Genesis 1.  In the beginning, God created… We all know that one.  It describes the creation on a cosmic or universal level.

Genesis 2 is a continuation of that account but at the same time it is an account all its own. This account gives us the order in the world that we know.

The two accounts were not reconciled into one when the oral telling of them was put into writing, probably at the time of the Babylonian Captivity. With a brief segue, one account transitions to the other.

 There is something of a third account in Genesis 5. 

When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.

The purpose of this account seems to be less about creation and more about the continuation of humankind. It’s the first genealogy in the Bible that goes beyond one generation.

There is one more creation story.  Actually, there are several stories about the creation that offer different aspects, but just one more that covers it all.  You know it.  It begins like the first one.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

And of course, we look forward to the New Creation.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

That’s a look at the creation stories, but how about the Christmas stories?

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are where we see those that we know best. We need both to get a good picture of what happened, but Luke’s gospel usually gets center stage in the Christmas play.

Mark’s gospel skips the creation entirely. What about John? We find a very succinct Christmas story in verse 14.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Merry Christmas!

So, there are our Christmas stories, or could there be yet another?

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

 Merry Christmas!

So why all this business about creation and Christmas?  I thought we were talking about circumcision and feasts and salvation by the law—which is no salvation at all.

Consider these words: But when the fullness of the time had come.

When it was just the right time.  When God’s clock said, now.  When all of the cosmic pieces fell into place…

We are self-aware beings.  That is, we know that we exist and we search for our purpose, at least some do. Because we know we are living creatures, we often examine ourselves.  We have a perspective on our lives. We are in awe of everything when we are young.  We know everything when we are a teenager. Sometimes, we find out that everything hurts when we get old.

For many of us, our minds tell us that we are still in our twenties and thirties.  Our bodies often disagree. One of my grandsons, Levi, likes to remind us that he’s big.

If we can be honest with ourselves, we know that we were totally dependent upon our parents for a long time.  Then we were allowed to do some things on our own.  We got a job.  We got a car.  We got a girlfriend and discovered it’s expensive to have a car and a girlfriend. But one day, we were pretty much making it on our own. Our parents were always there to help, but we wanted to make it on our own.

There came a time for us to leave the nest.

Mankind—humankind has also grown.  We were under the law for a time. The law was like a parent or guardian, but when the time became right, we were ready to live to the full.

The advent of the Messiah marked that time.  It was time for humankind to truly live. It was time to step out from under the law.  The law would no longer be a guardian who made the important decisions for us.  The law became a mentor—a lifelong guide—to help us navigate this world.

There was no longer a subordinate relationship to the law, for where there was such a relationship, we were also governed by sin.  The law is not bad and there is still sin in the world, but neither has power over us now.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

Paul notes a parallel between Ishmael and Isaac.  Ishmael was Abraham’s son, but not the son of the promise.  That son, came through Sarah.  We know him to be Isaac.

God still took care of Ishmael, but the promise of the Seed that would save humankind came through Isaac. Let’s hear Paul explain it.

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.

These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.  For it is written:

“Be glad, barren woman,

    you who never bore a child;

shout for joy and cry aloud,

    you who were never in labor;

because more are the children of the desolate woman

    than of her who has a husband.”

 Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.  But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Consider Paul’s Christmas story once again.

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

God sent forth his Son who was born under the law.  Christ Jesus was born under the law.  The law was guardian over humankind until Christ came.  Christ fulfilled the law just as he said he would.

We are liberated from the guardianship of the law, not to ignore the law but to receive the law as our mentor and friend.  God gave I for our own good and now because of the promise that we see first with Abraham and delivered through Jesus, we are no longer under—subordinate to—the law. 

The law is our mentor.  The law is our friend.  The law shows us where we fall short of the glory of God, but the law is not our governor.

We are made right with God by grace that we have been given by the blood of Jesus.  It is truly a gift that we receive by faith.

Now that we are God’s children, we know that he will not orphan us.  We will not run away and return to the governance of the law—the slavery of the law.

The commands of God are good and for our own good, but not our master.  We should obey them in response to this grace that we have received.  If we live to the full, we will fulfill his commands by loving one another.

The law will show us where we fall short.

The law will guide us in holy living.

The law will never get us to right standing with God.

The law will show us how much we need the grace of God that has been offered freely in the blood of Jesus.

The law is neither master nor governor of our lives.  We have been set free of the law’s mastery over us and now that we have received salvation by grace through faith, the law is our friend and mentor, but not our governor.

We live in an age—a wonderful age—where neither the law, nor sin, nor death, nor anything else on earth can separate us from the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus. I’m wrapping up with Paul’s words to the Romans.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When we get to Ephesians, we will talk more about what we have in him—Christ Jesus our Lord.  For now, start thinking of the law as your mentor or friend, but never your master.

We have not kicked the law to the curb.  The law is in our inner circle with the Spirit of God that lives within us as well as the full biblical witness that we know.

The time became right not only for us, but for the law as well.  The time was right for the law to become our guide to Godly living.

Now that we are set free from sin and death and know that nothing can separate us from the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus, we can seek to bring glory to God with the guidance of the Spirit, the law, wisdom, and with the support of the body of Christ.

The law is not our governor and it is not a burden.  It is our friend and mentor.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The Righteous will Live by Faith!

 Read Galatians 3

And so we come to Leviticus, Habakkuk, and James as we explore Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

First to Leviticus.

Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

The law was given for our own good.  It was a guide, a guardian, an overseer to our human nature.  It showed the people God’s way.

They knew what the Egyptians did.  They knew what their ancestors did when they lived beyond the Euphrates. They would soon know what the people in the Promised Land did before they took possession. The law told God’s people not to do these things. But the law never got them or us all the way to salvation.  Why?

Nobody could or ever did live by the law, at least not by all of it.  Not even the patriarchs. Jesus was the only one who lived fully by the law, but the law did not bring him to righteousness.  He was righteous from the beginning.

James counseled us that if we choose to live by the law, we had better keep the entirety of the law.  Obeying most of the law or all of the law when we can make it fit into our world is not fulfilling the law.

This whole best-effort thing doesn’t cut it as far as righteousness goes.

So, we are toast, right?

The righteous will live by faith.  If you think that this is a New Testament mentality, realize that it was given as one of God’s answers to one of Habakkuk’s complaints about the lawlessness of God’s own people.

The righteous will live by faith.  Jesus did not do away with the law.  The law is still good, but it is faith that gets us to righteousness.

We are children of Abraham by the promise fulfilled in Abraham’s seed—Jesus Christ.  Now consider Paul’s words to the Galatians in this context that we have set.

Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.  But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

The law is good. It was given for our own good, but it can’t get us home.

The promise to us to be sons of Abraham and children of God comes as a gift of God.

Those who want to receive this gift will live by faith in the one and only Son of God. We believe!

What we are talking about is salvation—coming into right standing with God.  Receiving this gift of right standing through faith.

There is an extensive discourse that follows once you receive the gift.  Once you are in right standing, the law, the Spirit that lives within you, the prophecies and promises of God, the wisdom literature of God, and all of the counsel contained in the Bible become what we will call the full biblical witness.

The law has become a mentor and is no longer a guardian.

You come to right-standing with God by faith.  You receive the gift of salvation by faith.  You live by faith.  When you do that, the full biblical witness becomes visible to you.  This full biblical witness is not a guardian but a friend.

You have eyes to see and ears to ear how to live a godly life.

You will likely find yourself fulfilling the law by living a life of love, but your salvation came through faith.  We live by faith.  We walk by faith

It’s a lot to chew on, but let’s begin with the righteous will live by faith.

The righteous will live by faith!

Amen.

So Easily Fooled?

 Read Galatians 3

Consider reading a letter that you received and the author says, “Hey knuckleheads.  Who tricked you?”

How did you fall for this?

Were you not given the truth?

Was my message to you given in vain?

It’s been said that it is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled.  There might just be some truth in that statement.

Paul is writing to believers who have been fooled.  How hard is his job now to convince them that they knew the truth at first but set it aside for a gospel that it not even a gospel?

The Judaizers were insisting that following the law was essential to salvation.  Paul had taught them and continued to teach that we are saved by grace through faith. 

The con men were insisting that the law went back to Moses and could not be ignored.  It was essential to salvation.

Paul noted that the promise that the Galatians received predated the law by 430 years.  The law did not replace the promise given to Abraham that by his seed—through Jesus—their salvation would come.

Paul jumps to the heart of the matter.

I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?

Paul noted that he was not just talking semantics.  These were not talking points about whether the carpet in the sanctuary would be white or green. This was not whether we say sins, debts, or trespasses in the Lord’s Prayer.

This was about salvation coming from the grace of God himself or from our works.

After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?  So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?  So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Paul would go on to note that all who relied on the law for their salvation were under a curse.  In other correspondence, he notes the law is not bad.  We know it was given for our own good, but salvation does not come through the law.  Salvation comes by grace through faith.

Practice the law as you need to but don’t hang your salvation on it.  Thou shalt not murder is solid counsel.  Who can argue with it?

Have no other Gods—NO OTHER GODS!  We get that.

Don’t covet your neighbor’s stuff or his wife or her husband or the Amazon packages that block their front entryway.

God’s directives are for our own good but as far as salvation goes, all they can do is tell us we can’t get there from here by our compliance, obedience, or regularly scheduled observance.

Paul wrote to many churches with many issues, but all should note this.  All come to right standing with God from a condition of disobedience—even the one most obedient to the law.

We are saved by grace through faith!  When we get to the next letter, Paul will note so that nobody can boast about their own works, at least as far as salvation goes.

 Paul says that the law was like a guardian.  It was necessary to get us to the point where we could receive God’s grace.  We are not made to live with a guardian all of our lives.  At some point, we must truly live to the full.

Other translations might use the term tutor instead of guardian. I think in this analogy, at some point the tutor must become a mentor.  The didactic gives way to the guide.

Today, I use the example of training wheels.  They were good to help us learn the mechanics of riding a bicycle without falling over every five seconds.  But at some point, the training wheels are excess weight.  We have our balance and have mastered the idiom of riding our bicycles.

Neither we nor our bicycles were designed to have training wheels throughout our lifecycles. The training wheels were not bad.  They were for our own good.  They helped bring us up in the way we should go or ride.

The law was not bad.  It is given for our own good, but only grace gets us to salvation.  The law could not give us salvation. 

The Spirit of God came in our belief in the Son of God, through whom we know the Father.  Our salvation comes by grace through our faith.

We are made right with God by our faith.

Abraham was justified by his faith.

Salvation comes by faith not works.  It is completely the gift of God.

We live by faith!

Our works will be in response to this unfathomable gift of God that we know as grace.  We will do good acts before others so that we may bring glory to God.  We will live by love so that our very lives are our best offerings to God and thereby bring glory to his name.

We are only three chapters into this letter, but we should be certain of this.

There is no other gospel than that of grace.

The Spirit comes to us in our belief in the one and only Son of God.

Works are in response to the gift of salvation, not an added condition.

Let’s go forth with a bit of provocation to ponder.  How are the followers of Jesus to be called?  We are to be known by our love, but let’s talk nomenclature.

Are we law-abiding citizens?

Are we believers?

Neither is a bad thing, but only one leads to salvation.

Thanks be to God that we are saved by his grace through our faith.

Amen.

I am Crucified with Christ. Christ Lives in Me!

 Read Galatians 2

And so, to begin Galatians 2, we go to Genesis 17.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.  Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations.  No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.  I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.  I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.  The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come.  This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.  You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.  For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring.  Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.  Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

This circumcision stuff was not a slight matter for the Hebrew people.  In the past, it wasn’t an issue.  There were no expectations for the Gentiles because they were not God’s people. It’s the not my circus, not my monkey mindset.

Jesus changed the dynamic.  Now God was sending his emissaries out to all the peoples of the world.  God’s love was and is for all.  All can come in good relationship with God through belief in Christ Jesus.

Does that end God’s covenant with Abraham?  No.  God’s Chosen People will bear this sign in the flesh as part of an everlasting covenant.  It is not a condition of salvation for those who come to Christ Jesus and receive him as Lord.

Today, in the modern, western world, circumcision is more a medical choice than a decision of religion or faith.  Two thousand years ago, it was a sign in the flesh of the covenant that God made with Abraham and very important to his chosen people. We can’t fully understand how much this meant to God’s Chosen People.

I’m thinking that I would not have wanted to be the junior rabbi at temple gates during Passover or some other big event.  The Sanhedrin sitting high and mighty would surely assign the most junior rabbi’s circumcision check duty.  Nobody gets in from the Gentile courts without proof of circumcision.

I’m thinking I don’t like the idea of a vaccination passport, but I would have been ok with a circumcision passport. You think getting wanded at airport security is invasive…

The Jews are still God’s Chosen People, but God has extended his unfathomable love to all.  He has chosen us to be a part of his eternal family.

This was a matter of some discussion when Paul met with Peter, James, and John in Jerusalem, as we read in Acts 15. Where does circumcision, and for that matter, other matters of the law fit into the paradigm for these new believers from the Gentile world?

Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”

The apostles and elders met to consider this question.  After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.  God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.  He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.  Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?  No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

And in this first big church meeting, we see grace triumphant over ritual and works and even an everlasting sign inn the flesh.  Later on, Paul would talk about Gentiles being grafted into the line of Abraham and a discussion of circumcision might ensue from there, but surely the purpose of such grafting was for God to include all humankind into his eternal family.

So, if the Gentile believers were not required to be circumcised, how would they be known as followers of Jesus?

Jesus commanded us to be known by our love.  Our baptism is considered our modern-day sign.  It’s a sign in the spirit not the flesh, but that’s part of how we are to be known and how we are to live.

Paul presented it this way.

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. 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.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

The law which could only show me that I had fallen short of the glory of God offered little in the way of atonement.  Again and again, I was led to make recurring atonement for my sin.

I am dead to that way now.  The law was not bad.  God gave it for our own good, but now we receive the ultimate good of the law.  We have come to know grace.

We come to know God through his Son and his atoning sacrifice—a once and for all sacrifice.

Where does that leave me? Where does that leave any of us who have come to know Christ in this modern century?

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

Our sin, our debt, our old self was nailed to the cross with Christ.  And that old self that was so egregious as far as the law goes, is now dead. There was no resurrection for that old self. There will be more to follow along these lines.

But through God’s grace, his Son lives in me.  We have received the deposit of the Holy Spirit and we know that life eternal is real and that God has chosen us.

Christ lives in me!

Paul will address this concept in different ways in many letters, but we need to get our hearts and our heads around this idea that God himself is living within us.

The old sinful self is dead.  It is Christ himself who lives in me.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

Yes, we have some wrestling to do along the way, but we need to be fully convinced in our own minds that Christ Jesus lives within us.

I suggest that we get so accustomed to this quip of theology, that our minds become more and more accepting of what it means.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

Amen.