Get Your Belief System Straight

Connection Fellowship
June 7, 2009
Get Your Doctrine Straight
Galatians 3:1-29

For the past few weeks, we have been talking about Living in Freedom as we study the Book of Galatians. Yesterday I played golf. For me, golf does more than provide a few hours of recreation or fellowship. It provides sermon illustrations. And for this series…it proved a testing ground for my own response to this teaching.
(1) God wants us to live in grace and not under legalism – so I took a mulligan.
(2) The best defense for the Gospel is a changed life - I didn’t cuss this time (out loud).
(3) We are to die daily to our selfish desires – so I died to the idea of ever going pro.
And when I gave up on ever playing golf professionally and grasped the reality of my inabilities, I began to enjoy the recreation and fellowship that God provided through this round of golf so much more. It was so liberating!
Let me ask you a question. How have you been doing at living in the freedom God desires and provided through Christ? Have you laid aside any legalistic, non-biblical expectations of yourself or others? Has the reality of your changed life in Christ made a difference to anyone? Did you follow through on what God showed you last week about surrendering and dying to any attitude or thing?
As we come to Galatians chapter 3 this week, Paul sounds a bit parental. He tries to convey to these dear people how they can live in the freedom of God’s grace and not by the legalism of the Jewish Law. And he approaches it like a the greatest Teacher…Jesus…with lots of questions. And here is what he says:
“What are you are basing your life on?
Get your doctrine straight…It is so liberating!”
TEXT
1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched [duped] you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? [You have experienced it & seen it lived out!]

2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
[Did you start this Christian journey by the Law or by faith?]

3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? [You received the gift of salvation by grace through faith, but now you think that there is something you can do to earn it in the flesh?]

4 Did you suffer [experience] so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
5 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?
[Does God, who transformed you life, do all this by works or by faith?]

6 Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
[The Scripture says in Gen. 15:6 that even the father of the Jewish nation was declared right with God because of his faith, not works.]
7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.
[You cannot say I follow the true Jewish faith and still depend on works.]

8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.
[God told Abraham – Gen. 12:3 – that this good news would bless all people, not just the Jews. This message of faith and the promise of the Savior-Messiah would come through the Jews, but would be for all the people…not just those who convert to Jewish traditions.]

10 For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” 11 Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” 12 However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “He who practices them shall live by them.”
[If you want to live by Law, you have to keep it all to perfection in word, action, and attitude. And no one can do that…we all know it!]

13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
[Christ delivered us from this impossible system, bearing our curse so we could enjoy the blessing of God’s covenant promise to Abraham.]

15 Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it.
[They understood that covenants were not like contracts. They were permanently binding…even among men. How much more with God?]

16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.
[The covenant did not end at his death. And God provided for the completion of it through Abraham’s descendents, all the way to Christ.]

17 What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. 18 For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.
[The Law was given 430 years after God’s covenant was last restated to Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. If Law was the means to a relationship with God, then it would do away with God’s faith covenant of salvation through the Messiah. That makes no sense. You would be following a Law based on a faulty beginning and a faulty God. If God is faulty, then the Law, that He gave, is also faulty. So why then the law?]

19 Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.
[It was for the sake of defining transgressions until the promised Messiah would come. Remember, when the Law was given, the Jewish people were struggling. They were wondering in the wilderness after a long captivity in pagan Egypt. Not unlike many in culture today, they were struggling to find their faith…and it was easily misplaced.]

20 Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one.
[This is a one-way covenant that God Himself made and delivered. And He works for the good of both parties…sinful man and His holy glory.]

21 Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. 22 But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
[Does God contradict Himself with Covenant and Law? No way! If keeping Law could provide life, then a right relationship with God would come by keeping that Law. But rather, what it did was show men that there was no other hope – in ourselves – so when Jesus Christ came, it would be made evident to those who would themselves and believe.]

23 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.
[This is a picture of a corral, keeping the Jewish people on the right path until their faith could be revealed in the physical reality of Jesus.]

24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
[Like a traditional schoolmaster, who was hired to keep watch over and teach the children until they were mature, the Law was to keep the Jews on track and lead them to recognize the promise completed in Christ. But it no longer serves that purpose, for Christ is now the guide for life.]

26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
[Remember, Paul is writing to believers, and is not making a universal declaration that everyone is right with God. But those immersed in Christ…by faith…are now identified as a child of God. In God’s eyes, we are ‘clothed’ in Christ and when He looks at us, He sees His Son. And seeing His Son, there are no longer distinctions among believers concerning His faith covenant…now delivered to the entire human race.]

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.
[No matter your nationality, your status in society, or your gender, all of you are recipients of the covenant of salvation through faith in Christ. Some today have used this text to say that in the New Testament there is no longer heterosexual or homosexual. But that is not what it is saying at all. No, under the old Law system, there were all kinds of distinctions between people in how they relate to God…but no more. All approach God by the same WAY, TRUTH, and LIFE…Jesus Christ…by faith.]

UNDERSTANDING
You might say, “I’m not a Jew,” or “I never tried to keep some religious system to get to heaven. So, what does this all mean for me?” Glad you asked!

Everyone follows some belief system, whether established by a religion, a country, a church, or even yourself. God would have us know that there is only one WAY to a right relationship with Him...and it has never changed. It is by faith alone in Christ alone [Martin Luther]. Anything belief system that would contradict or attempt to add to this central truth is not of God. Don’t be duped!

Freedom comes from following Christ…not Christians. [J.D.M.]

And why is there such liberty for our lives when we get this central doctrine or belief straight? First, because we no longer live in bondage to a performance based process of trying to please God or others. Second, our identity & security in Christ becomes the anchor for our life. So we are no long tossed about by any little thing that comes our way. If you are struggling with the bumps of the journey, I want to encourage you to search God’s Living Word to help you understand His Character and Promises so you can live in the freedom God desires and has provided for you.

CONCLUSION
A friend has challenged me for the past four months with this question: “What would happen in our community if everyone person came to the reality of the freedom that comes from a relationship with God through faith in Christ.”

What would be different? What would it look like? I have asked God to give me a vision for what it would look like and an inescapable passion to see it happen. But I want to leave you today with an even more personal question that God asked me while I was struggling once again this week with my friend’s challenge:
“How can I bring this reality in your community, your church, or your family… or use you to impact the world if you are not living in this freedom each day?”

How would my life and your life look different if we were to live
each day by faith in the liberty and reality of our identity in Christ?”