WWUTT 1761 By Law or By Faith, Part 2 (Galatians 3:1-9)

When you became a Christian, did you receive the Holy Spirit by doing works of the law or by hearing with faith? Romans 10 -17 says faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

Galatians 3:1-9 and the Question of Faith Versus Works

We come back to the sermon that we started last week. This is part two of By Law or by Faith and our text is Galatians chapter 1 verses 1 -9. Let me begin by reading that and then we'll pick up where we left off.

This is the word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the churches in Galatia. Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 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?

Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Christ, Righteousness, and the Gift of the Spirit

Now in picking up where we left off last week, I'm going to resume with the questions that I asked there at the end of that section, and then we'll continue on with our exposition of Galatians 3, 1 through 9.

This is part two of By Law or By Faith. Do you want to know if you are saved? Look at Christ. Do not look to yourself. Do not look at whether or not I've done this today. You look at Christ. How do I know if I can forgive this person who's done me wrong?

Look at Christ, who's forgiven you of far more wrong than this person has ever done to you. How do I know that I'm properly equipped for this task that God has called me to? Look at Christ, who has accomplished all things perfectly by his life on earth and fulfilled the requirement of atonement with his death for the forgiveness of sins.

How do I know that I can live in this world in a way that is pleasing to God? Look at Christ, who lived perfectly in this world and who gives us his spirit, saying to his own disciples, I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you and to every one of us as well. Matthew 28, 20, behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age. Folks, the call to obedience is not left up to us to fulfill. As I said to you last week, God's demand is righteousness, but his gift is righteousness.

The demand and the gift. So that as it says in Romans 3, he might be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. He is the righteous one who demands righteousness, and he is the righteous, gracious God who gives the righteousness he demands.

We have a righteousness that is not our own. It is the righteousness of Christ given to all who would believe. Apply that also to obedience. God demands us to obey. He gives us his spirit that we may obey.

He calls us to faith.

He gives faith.

By grace you are saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. He gives us his statutes. He gives us his spirit that we may walk in his statutes. Ezekiel 36, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

All of these things that are done are the work of God. The righteousness of God he demands is the righteousness of God that he gives. To better understand this, it's good to have very basic definitions of these words that we are reading.

When we're talking about righteousness and we talk about justification, they're big words in the Bible, and sometimes we just kind of take them for granted because we hear them preached, but do you understand what we're talking about?

Righteousness. What is righteousness? I ask this question with my kids when we're sitting around the table and we're doing our.

Devotions.

What is righteousness? What is the first five letters we see in the word righteousness?

Right.

Righteousness is the state of being right. That's what it means to be righteous. Doing what is right. Justification.

Justification.

What does it mean to be justified? It is the act of making right. So when we are justified by God, before him, by faith, we have been made right. The act has been done and it has been accomplished in Christ and it has been received by faith.

We are justified. The act of being made right before God. Now we are called to righteousness, to walk in righteousness, and that is a state of being right so that we continue to live in rightness before God.

And all of these things are by faith, not by works of the law. For Paul will go on here, verse three, to say, are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? In other words, perhaps you as Galatians do believe that you've been justified by faith, but now are you going through the course of your Christian walk believing that it is now by your flesh that you are supposed to be sanctified?

That you're supposed to be made holy? That you would continue and grow in righteousness and faith? Is it by your works that you come into perfection? No, my friends, it is not by our works that we were justified and it's not by our works that we're sanctified.

Paul said to the Philippians, Philippians 1 .6, I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you, he, God, Christ, who began this good work in you, will be faithful to do what? Complete it on the day of Christ.

So God starts the work and God continues the work and it is by the working of his Spirit within us that we even come into perfection. You don't have the ability to forgive that person, to walk in holiness, to please God by the works of your flesh.

You cannot do it, but by the power of God that is within you, you can do what he has required of us. Turn with me, if you will, to Romans chapter 7. Look at Romans 7. Romans 7, I'll start in verse 12 and starting in verse 12 because it gives us context to what Paul is going into next in verse 13.

So he says, the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good, lest any one of us think that the law is a bad thing. David prayed in Psalm 119 .67, Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.

Folks, that's not an Old Testament concept. We all should delight in the law of God. It is our delight to know the word of God and desire to follow God. We want to do that as his followers. So Paul says, the law is holy.

The commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good then, verse 13, bring death to me? By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good, the law which awakens sin, the inability to follow the law that awakens sin in me and produce death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin.

Through the law, I had knowledge of what sin is and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. I have no ability to keep the law. I realize how fallen before God I truly am. Verse 14, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Now if this sounds somewhat comical to you, the thing I want to do I can't do, but I do the thing I don't want to do, okay?

As Paul is going through that, that sounds funny? Yeah, that's the vicious cycle, it's the absurd cycle of sin that we're in whenever we try to do righteousness by our flesh. Now this section of Romans is constantly debated among scholars.

They debate it on this ground. Is Paul talking about who he was before he came to faith, or is Paul talking about the struggles that he has now as he's walking in faith? But I tell you, if you ask that question, you're interpreting Romans 7 in a vacuum and not in the context in which it's given with the rest of Romans that Paul has laid out in the previous six chapters.

Like Galatians, Paul is talking about in Romans justification. It is the doctrine of justification, of being justified by God before him by faith in Christ. And what he talks about through the first three chapters is how all men are in condemnation.

And then in the next three chapters, four, five, and six, how we are justified by faith. So it is not by your work that you came to justification, it is by the work of God. All of sin, you were not righteous, you couldn't do it.

So it is by faith in Christ that you come to be justified and walk in that justification and grow in it. So it is not by your work that you are justified. It is not by your work that you are saved. Therefore it is not by your work that you stay saved.

So in the context of Romans 7, what Paul is saying, after I'm justified, which was not by my flesh, but it was by faith in Christ. In this process of sanctification, I can't do that either. I'm not accomplishing my sanctification by my own flesh, by my own works.

So it is not by my flesh that I'm justified, it is not by my flesh that I'm sanctified, it is by Christ. That's what Paul is talking about in Romans 7. Now we're in the context of sanctification, previously justification, now growing in holiness and righteousness.

It's not by my works I do that, it is by the work of God within me. By the work of God I was justified, by the work of God I'm sanctified. If after I've been justified, I then fall back into works of the flesh and thinking that I have to do this, I am going to fail at every point.

I cannot save myself, I cannot sustain myself. It is God who saves, it is God who sustains. So that's what we come to understand in Romans 7, that Paul says, as I try to do these things under my own power, I'm going to fall at every point.

I'm going to be reminded of the sinfulness, the sinful man that I am, and realizing that I need to rely more fully on Christ. Consider verse 24, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law.

Of sin.

May we submit ourselves fully unto Christ, that we may serve the law of God with faith, rather than trying to do so by our own ability, or thinking that it is our ability to sanctify ourselves. We cannot justify ourselves, we do not sanctify ourselves.

This is all the work of God. So once again, Paul is saying in Galatians 3, 3, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? The answer to that question should be no. But for the Galatians, they were still falling into thinking that it was by their flesh that they were going to be sanctified.

By our flesh we're justified, circumcision. By our flesh we're sanctified, I'm going to keep my circumcision. That was kind of the way of the Galatians here that Paul is rebuking. Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain?

So the suffering, or the endurance, that the Galatians had experienced for the gospel that they believed, was it in vain? Meaning, was it to your credit? Because you did something, and so now I can say, I've suffered because of me?

Or are you suffering for the name of Christ? Did you suffer so many things by your own merit? If indeed it was in vain, like is the faith that you say that you have, is it genuine? Or are you going to continue in this way, to actually demonstrate that your faith was never genuine in the first place?

If you continue to believe to your dying day that it is by works that I have come into salvation and not by faith, then are you going to demonstrate with your life that your faith was never genuine at all?

Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Is this trial that you're going through now, this trial for you as Galatians, to hold fast to the true gospel that we first proclaimed to you, and you're not able to do that, is this actually going to demonstrate to us that your faith was never genuine in the first place?

That's a warning. Let it not be so. Verse 5, does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works, by your legalism, or because you have heard with faith?

The most amazing miracle, I've already kind of said this in some way, but let me state it to you again, the most amazing miracle that you can see in this world, you could see it with your own eyes, you could put it to the test if you wanted, the most amazing miracle that you will see demonstrated in the world around us today is the reviving of a soul from death to life.

The work of God in a person who says, I once was this, I once was dead in my sins and in my transgressions, and now says, but in Christ I have been made alive together with Him. And I am a different person.

The old man is dead. I am new in Christ. Back to last week, Galatians 2 .20, I have been crucified with Christ. And it's no longer I who live. It's Christ who lives within me. That's a miracle. For who in the world has the power to change themselves from a God-hater to a God-lover?

Who can do that? No one can. Galatians 3 .12, or sorry, Romans 3 .12 tells us that. No one seeks for God. Together we've become worthless. Left to our own devices, we would continue in this progress of sin for the rest of eternity if not for God who has intercepted us on the road to hell and turned us around where previously we were following the works of Satan and now we desire to do the works of God.

That's because a miraculous transformation has happened in the life of that person. And that is the work of God. He supplies the spirit. He has done miracles and has done so that you may receive these things by faith.

Abraham, the Gospel Beforehand, and the Children of God

Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Quoting from Genesis 15 .6, Abraham had done nothing. But God simply gave him a promise and Abraham believed it. And it says it was counted to him as righteousness.

Abraham was declared right before God, not because of anything Abraham did, but because he believed by faith. And so then Paul goes on in Galatians 3 .7 to say, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

Who are the children of God? Those who believe by faith. It is often said, and you'll find secularists even say this, people who, I shouldn't say secularists, people who will say that they're spiritual, but not religious, we'll put it that way.

They will say that they are a child of God. I hear it said all the time. I encounter people in Junction City that will tell me that. There was one man down at the park, down at Heritage Park, I was witnessing to one time and he said, I don't need to hear this.

And I said, why don't you need to hear the gospel? And he said, because I'm already a child of God. And I said, well, if you were a child of God, you would want to hear the gospel. And he said, that's absurd.

Where do you get that from? I said, Jesus in John 8. Why do you not understand what it is that I say to you? Because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil. And your will is to do your father's desires.

I tell you, he loved that. When I said that to him. There are people who just, they think that they're a child of God. You'll ask him, what's your justification for that? What makes you think that you're a child of God?

Because I'm made in his image. We're all made in his image. Everyone, every person is made in the image of God. Therefore, we are children of God.

Well, good.

I'm glad you know Genesis 127. There's a whole other Bible that comes after that. Just two chapters later, what did we do with the image of God? We sinned. And so God has given his son, Jesus, to die for our sins.

And he gives his righteousness. So now we stand before God. And we are being remade into the image of the son, Romans 8, 29. That we would bear his image. And God receives us because we bear the image of Christ instead of the image of sinful Adam.

So it is by faith in Christ that we have become children of God. You're either children of the devil or you're the children of God. Who are the children of God? Those who believe God and it's counted to them as righteousness.

It is those of faith who are sons of Abraham. Those of faith are children of God. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

I recently heard Andy Stanley say that you don't even get to the gospel until you get to the New Testament. Well, according to this passage, the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

I was talking about us, ladies and gentlemen. That all who believe in Christ Jesus may also be included among them. Those who would inherit the kingdom of God. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, who is the man of faith.

We are children of Abraham if we believe by faith. So once again, stating to you as matter-of-factly as I possibly can, it is not by your works that you are justified. It is not by your legalism that you are even sanctified.

It is by faith in Jesus Christ that you are saved for all who believe.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. And let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.