Sunday Sermon: By Works of the Law or Hearing With Faith (Galatians 3:1-9)

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You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

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On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series.

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This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit. Here's Pastor Gabe. Galatians 3, beginning in verse 1.

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O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

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

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Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

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Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the

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Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

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Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

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And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying,

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In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are being blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

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Let us pray. Our God, we thank you for your scriptures and your word.

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For as we have read in Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

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So as we hear the word of Christ spoken to us and taught to us today, I pray that we are growing in faith, coming to know you more and more and seeing the greatness of who you are and the wonderful gift of your grace that has been given to us through Jesus Christ.

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And we would receive all of the benefits and the treasures of the grace and love that have been given to us by God simply by faith in Christ.

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Grow us in this faith all the more today, we pray. In God's name and all God's people said,

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Amen. You may be seated. A little over 10 years ago,

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I had the chance to tour with a Christian comedian by the name of Ken Davis, and I would play music and sing and then

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Ken would do his stand up. One of the things that I loved about Ken is it was not just random jokes.

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You know, we weren't just saying jokes to make people laugh and that was his thing, but he would even include the gospel or a message of hope or some encouragement in the comedy that he would share as well.

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And I remember one of the messages that Ken shared in one of his routines. He was talking about when he grew up and all of the legalism that was upon him as a kid, all the things that he was told, what it meant to be a good

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Christian, all the things that you should not do. You should not do this. You should not do that.

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And that's what makes you a good Christian. And this is typically for those of us who had grown up maybe with somewhat of a fundamentalist background.

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That wasn't me so much, but I had a lot of friends that were caught in that fundamentalism.

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But when you hear that fundamentalist sort of guidelines for Christianity, it usually sounds something like this.

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Do not smoke. Do not drink. Do not go to bad movies.

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And do not hang out with people who do such things. And then you will be a good

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Christian. And that was the kind of message that Ken grew up hearing too. And so Ken said one day he was out on his porch and he was pondering these things and thinking about all the good things he does not do, therefore he must be a good

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Christian. And he said, as I was sitting out there pondering these things, my dog walked by. And I looked at my dog and I thought, well, my dog doesn't smoke.

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My dog doesn't drink. My dog doesn't watch bad movies.

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And my dog doesn't hang out with other dogs who do such things. And I know there are dogs that do such things because I've seen the paintings.

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Some of you know which painting I'm referring to. And so it was an epiphany for Ken to realize all the stuff that I'm not doing is not what makes me a

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Christian. It's faith in Christ. That is the mark of Christianity.

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Not the things that we do or the things that we don't do. But our salvation is by faith in Him.

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So last week, the way that I started the sermon was talking about all the things that I did thinking doing those things was meriting my salvation or my right standing before God.

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And hearing this testimony from Ken, it's also the things that we do not do that sometimes we will list out.

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I don't do this. I don't do that. And thinking those works, in a sense, will earn our salvation, will give us righteousness, will make us a good person.

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There are certainly certain things that we will demonstrate with our lives to show the evidence of faith that we have.

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But these things do not save us. It is faith in Christ that is our salvation.

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And this is the message that Paul comes back to over and over again with the Galatians throughout this letter.

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Justification by faith. You are forgiven your sins by faith in Christ.

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You do nothing. You can do nothing. You are not a righteous person, so you can't earn your own righteousness.

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It is Christ who has done it for us. And by His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave, do we have salvation.

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Paul says in Galatians 3, once again, in rebuking of the Galatians' behavior and the things that they have come to believe, that they have to work, that they have to do something in order to be saved,

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Paul says, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? See, at one point the

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Galatians had heard the gospel. There was a point that they believed the exclusive gospel of Christ, that it is only by faith that we are saved and not of works.

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But then these Judaizers come in and they tell the Galatians, well, you have to be circumcised.

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If you haven't been circumcised, then you are not saved. They still believed in Jesus.

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They still believed He died on the cross. They still believed that He rose again from the grave. But now they've added to the gospel.

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See, that wasn't enough. I also have to be circumcised. And if I'm circumcised and I believe in Jesus, then

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I'm saved. No, that's a different gospel. And if you have added to the gospel that was proclaimed to you, like, how did you so easily fall into this?

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You believed the gospel at one point, but you've fallen into this. So did someone cast a spell on you?

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That's what Paul means when he says, who has bewitched you? How did you so easily fall back into works again, trying to do these works, which you were doing before, and it didn't work then, it's not going to work now.

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So you believed the gospel. Now you've gone back to believing works. So how did you fall into this so easy?

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Again, back to Galatians 1 .6, I am astonished that you're so quickly deserting

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Him who called you in the grace of God and are turning to a different gospel. Chapter 3, verse 1,

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O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? This was so easy for you to fall away from the gospel and into works of the flesh.

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Did someone cast a spell on you that you would fall into this the way that you have?

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It is very, very easy for us to come into thinking that we have to do something in order to be saved.

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It's very easy to believe that. Or it's very easy for us to believe that we don't do certain things in order to be saved.

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As long as I don't do this, then by my abstinence, by doing nothing at all, then

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I know that I can be a good Christian. Well, then my friends, the best person that you will ever be is sitting at home in your easy chair doing nothing, if that's what you're going to believe it takes to have sanctification.

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But on the contrary, God has called us to work. He has told us to go. He has called us to believe, to have faith, to serve, to worship, all of these things we have been called upon to do.

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So we can't just sit and do nothing and earn our righteousness. In fact, the

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Thessalonians had a problem with this. They believed that they just sat and did nothing. They're just waiting for Christ to return, and that's all we have to do.

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As Christians, that's all we need to do yet. And Paul rebuked them and said, no, you have somebody in your church who's not working, have nothing to do with that person.

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Don't even eat with such a one. For each one of us are to do our work and mind our own business, as Paul had said in 2

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Thessalonians chapter 3. Not meddling and getting involved in other people's affairs, things that you had no business being involved in, but you have work to do and you have a task that is set forward at hand.

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Ephesians 2 .10, we often quote Ephesians 2 .8, by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.

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That's 8 and 9. But then we leave off verse 10, for you are his workmanship, made for good works, which

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God prepared for you beforehand, that you should walk in them. So there is a work that we are supposed to do, but the works are the demonstration of the salvation that we have.

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They are certainly not the thing that earns us salvation. I think I said this to you last week, but if you ever find yourself in a church one of these days, or God forbid it even be proclaimed from this pulpit in this church, that you have to work in order to gain your salvation.

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You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this, you should not do this, you should not do this, you should not do this.

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That church is anathema. Get out! Go find one that is preaching the gospel. It is not by works that we are saved, it is by faith.

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But let it also not be said that there's nothing we're supposed to do at all. For if our heart has been transformed to be lovers of God rather than haters of God, then we will desire to worship him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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And that is a bold and deliberate action that a believer takes in Christ Jesus.

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We don't sit and wait for something to happen, but we go as Christ has told us to go.

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I remember a Sunday school teacher when I was a kid giving me this illustration. What are the first two letters of the word

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God? What does that spell? Go. What do the first three letters of the name

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Satan spell? Sat. God has called us to go, that we would worship him, that we would live lives of holiness in this present age.

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We do that because we've been called in the grace of God, not because doing so gives us the grace of God.

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Paul says, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

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Now, if you have the New King James version, anybody have the New King James, by the way?

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Is anybody reading from the NKJV? If the Hickersons were there, if they were here, they would have the

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New King James. But the New King James has this worded in an interesting way, oh, foolish

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Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?

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That's interesting. That's an interesting way to word that. Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth that Christ was portrayed as crucified?

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Now, I read it that way, and you say, well, Brother Gabe, you just said that we're justified by faith and not by works.

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Do not conflate obedience and works. Obedience does not mean works, for faith is also obedience.

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When Jesus comes preaching the gospel in Matthew 4, 17, and he says, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent is a call.

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It is an instruction. It is a command that must be followed. In Mark, in Mark chapter 1, as Dave is teaching through Mark right now in his

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Sunday school class, in Mark 1, the gospel as Christ proclaims it at first is, repent and believe the gospel.

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That's what he says. So by faith, there is an obedience that happens.

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There is a repentance that takes place, and there is a belief that occurs. But all of these things happen because the

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Spirit of God has been poured into our hearts. Not because we do that to then have our salvation, but because it is the response to the call of the gospel.

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To have faith is to obey God. There are other words that we can find that are synonymous with faith, as a matter of fact.

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Love is also synonymous with faith. For Jesus said in John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

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So our obedience to God is in love for God. And again, obedience is not synonymous with working or doing some kind of work to merit our salvation, for obedience is synonymous with faith.

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John 6, 29, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

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And so if we have faith, and if we follow God, then we are demonstrating that the love of God has been poured into our hearts in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth.

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We have been called to obedience in Christ, but we cannot obey without the work of the

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Holy Spirit that is within our hearts. So it is the Spirit of God that is poured into our hearts, and we are regenerated,

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Titus 3, 5. Previously, we were rebellious against God, and now we desire to follow

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God because of his Spirit that is given within us. So then it is before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

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Now this doesn't mean, Paul is saying to the Galatians, you saw Jesus crucified. That's not what that means.

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But rather, that you saw through the preaching of the apostles and the miracles that were performed by them that this gospel that was proclaimed is true.

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And therefore, believing it, you obeyed the call of the gospel to turn from sin and follow

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Jesus Christ. And this was evidenced in you because of the gospel that was said,

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Jesus Christ publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this,

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Paul goes on in verse 2, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? So here is the options that Paul is laying out before the

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Galatians. Was it by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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If you would like, separate those out into categories, option A or option B. Your underline would be works of the law or underline under hearing with faith.

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Another way to say this, maybe to whittle this down into words that are easier to grasp. Did you receive the

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Spirit by legalism or by believing? Was the

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Spirit of God given to you in your hearts because you checked off everything on your list and you got it and you could put a line through it, strike it out.

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I've got, I've accomplished that, boom, did it perfectly, accomplished it, done. I know I'm saved because X, Y, Z, A, B, C, X, Y, Z, you did everything on your list.

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Is that how you came to faith? Or was it by believing in Christ?

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Is that how the Spirit of God came to you? Was it because you did this and the Spirit of God looked at you and said, aha, finally you've accomplished those tasks, that's what

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I've been waiting for. I've been waiting for you to finish all those works and now, boom, Spirit of God comes inside of you.

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Is that how that occurred? Or did you believe in Christ and the believing demonstrated that you did have the

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Spirit of God received? Because as we read in Romans 3, 10 through 12, no one is seeking for God.

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There is no one good and no one righteous. Romans chapter 8 is where it says that without the

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Spirit of God, no one can please Him. So how could you believe in God, which would no doubt be a good thing and would be pleasing to God?

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It is only by the Spirit that has been poured into your heart. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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Did you receive the Spirit by legalism or did you receive it by believing? This morning before church,

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I went down to the jail and I ministered to a young man. It's the only time in the entire week they allow him visitors.

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So that's going to be my routine on Sunday morning. I'm going to the jail and ministering to this young man and then

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I'm coming to church. And as I was talking with this young man, I said to him, do you understand the gospel?

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Do you understand what that means and what it is? And he said he thought so. He was very honest in saying, well, there's certain things

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I get, there's certain things I don't understand. And I asked him after this conversation explaining the gospel,

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I said, if I were to ask you if you were saved, how would you know? And he said, well, because I pray every night and because I pray every night and ask forgiveness for my sins, then

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I know that I'm saved. And I said, are you sure that when you pray every night that you're doing it the right way?

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And he sat and pondered that and he said, well, no, I guess not. I said, see, here's the conundrum that this creates.

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When you put the assurance of your salvation on the things that you do, is that you're always going to be questioning whether or not you did it right.

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So you say that you have assurance of salvation because every night before I go to bed, I repent. And so now

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I have assurance. What if you die at six o 'clock and you didn't get the chance to repent before you went to bed?

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How would you know that at the moment of your death, you're standing before God and you're hearing him say, well done, good and faithful servant, rather than depart from me,

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I never knew you. The assurance, the reliance cannot be on what we do.

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We will never be sure. We will never have faith. That legalism, that checking off those boxes, that making sure

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I've done this, this, and this is never going to make you right before God. It is only by faith.

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Did you receive the spirit by works? Did you receive the spirit of God because you asked forgiveness before you went to bed?

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And incidentally, that's kind of a whittled down form of Islam, you know, regular prayer throughout the day.

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I pray, I have made the pilgrimages, I have paid alms, all of these things, a

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Muslim is going to check off his list and say, this is how I know I am going to receive paradise when

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I die because I've done this, this, and this. Once again, how easy is it for us in our flesh to fall into legalism, to believing that we do these things and therefore we know that we have salvation with God.

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Even when you go into the early church and you read the early church fathers, there are some that will come back to the early church fathers, they will quote something by some of these guys, you know, like from Polycarp all the way up through Augustine.

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And they will think that by quoting these guys, this is how we best understand the scriptures. There are certainly some great things that we can understand from the early church fathers that help to give us light and understanding into the way the early church understood these passages.

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But the early church fathers were wrong sometimes. They're not scripture. The Bible is scripture.

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The early church fathers are church history. So they help us understand some things about the church, but they're not the

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Bible, right? One of the things that we see when we look into the early church fathers is even through these guys, how easy it was for them to fall right back into legalism.

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You're talking about decades removed from the crucifixion of Christ and his ascension into heaven. And yet, even within the second century, they're falling right back into a pattern of,

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I got to do this, I got to do this, I got to do this, and then I know I'm saved. It is not by works of the law.

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It is not by legalism. It is by hearing with faith.

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It is by believing in him who saves. Now I had a very short time with this young man this morning, so I'm expanding greatly on what it is that I shared with him as I relay this to you.

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But I simply said to him, do you want to know if you are saved? Look at Christ.

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Do not look to yourself. Do not look at whether or not I've done this today. You look at Christ.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Matthew 28, 20, Behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age.

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Folks, the call to obedience is not left up to us to fulfill.

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As I said to you last week, God's demand is righteousness, but his gift is righteousness.

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Righteousness, the demand and the gift, so that, as it says in Romans 3, he might be both the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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He is the righteous one who demands righteousness, and he is the righteous, gracious God who gives the righteousness he demands.

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We have a righteousness that is not our own. It is the righteousness of Christ given to all who would believe.

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Apply that also to obedience. God demands us to obey. He gives us his Spirit that we may obey.

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He calls us to faith. He gives faith. By grace, you are saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.

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It is the gift of God. He gives us his statutes. He gives us his

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Spirit that we may walk in his statutes. Ezekiel 36, I will put my

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Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

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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.

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To better understand this, it's good to have very basic definitions of these words that we are reading.

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When we're talking about righteousness and we talk about justification, they're big words in the

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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?

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

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

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Right. Righteousness is the state of being right.

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That's what it means to be righteous. Doing what is right. Justification.

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What does it mean to be justified? It is the act of making right.

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So, when we are justified by God, before him, by faith, we have been made right.

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The act has been done, and it has been accomplished in Christ, and it has been received by faith.

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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.

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And all of these things are by faith, not by works of the law. For Paul will go on here, verse 3, to say, are you so foolish, having begun by the

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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

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Christian walk believing that it is now by your flesh that you are supposed to be sanctified?

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That you're supposed to be made holy? That you would continue and grow in righteousness and faith?

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Is it by your works that you come into perfection? No my friends.

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It is not by our works that we were justified, and it's not by our works that we're sanctified.

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Paul said to the Philippians, Philippians 1 .6, I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you,

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He, God, Christ, who began this good work in you, will be faithful to do what?

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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.

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You don't have the ability to forgive that person, to walk in holiness, to please

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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

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He has required of us. Turn with me, if you will, to Romans chapter 7.

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Look at Romans 7. Romans 7,

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I'll start in verse 12, and starting in verse 12 because it gives us context to what

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Paul is going into next in verse 13. So he says, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

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Lest any one of us think that the law is a bad thing. David prayed in Psalm 119, 67, oh, how

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I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Folks, that's not an Old Testament concept.

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We all should delight in the law of God. It is our delight to know the word of God and desire to follow

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God. We want to do that as His followers. So Paul says the law is holy.

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The commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good then, verse 13, bring death to me?

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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.

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Through the law I had knowledge of what sin is, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

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I have no ability to keep the law. I realize how fallen before God I truly am.

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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

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I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what

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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.

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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.

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For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

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Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

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Now, if this sounds somewhat comical to you, the thing I want to do I can't do, but I do the thing

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I don't want to do, okay? As Paul is going through that, if 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.

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Now this section of Romans is constantly debated among scholars. They debate it on this ground.

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Is Paul talking about who he was before he came to faith, or is

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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So it is not by your work that you came to justification, it is by the work of God.

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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.

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So it is not by your work that you are justified. It is not by your work that you are saved.

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Therefore, it is not by your work that you stay saved. So in the context of Romans 7, what

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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,

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I can't do that either. I'm not accomplishing my sanctification by my own flesh, by my own works.

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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.

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That's what Paul's 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

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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.

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If after I've been justified, I then fall back into works of the flesh and thinking that I have to do this,

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I am going to fail at every point. I cannot save myself, I cannot sustain myself.

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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,

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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.

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Consider verse 24, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

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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

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I serve the law of sin. May we submit ourselves fully unto

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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.

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We cannot justify ourselves, we do not sanctify ourselves, this is all the work of God.

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So once again, Paul's saying in Galatians 3, 3, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

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The answer to that question should be no, but for the

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Galatians, they were still falling into thinking that it was by their flesh that they were going to be sanctified.

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By our flesh we're justified, circumcision. By our flesh we're sanctified,

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I'm going to keep my circumcision. That was kind of the way of the Galatians here that Paul is rebuking.

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Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain?

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So the suffering, or the endurance, that the

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Galatians had experienced for the gospel that they believed, was it in vain, meaning, was it to your credit?

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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?

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Did you suffer so many things by your own merit, if indeed it was in vain?

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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?

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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?

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This is the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13, where Jesus says there is one who will receive the word, and they immediately receive it with joy, and they endure for a time, but then when persecution comes on account of the word, or life gets difficult because of the struggles of this world, then they fall away.

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Because a person has no root in himself, he must be rooted in Christ. And if rooted in himself, we can't sustain ourselves, and it will actually be demonstrated that they were never truly in Christ to begin with.

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So Paul is saying here, is that going to be what's going to happen to you? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain?

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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?

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That's a warning. Let it not be so. Verse 5, does he who supplies the

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Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

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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?

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The most amazing miracle, I've already kind of said this in some way, but let me state it to you again.

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The most amazing miracle that you can see in this world, you could see it with your own eyes.

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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.

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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.

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And I am a different person. The old man is dead. I am new in Christ.

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Back to last week, Galatians 2 .20, I have been crucified with Christ. And it's no longer

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I who live. It's Christ who lives within me. That's a miracle.

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For who in the world has the power to change themselves from a God -hater to a God -lover? Who can do that?

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No one can. Galatians 3 .12, or sorry, Romans 3 .12 tells us that.

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No one seeks for God. Together we've become worthless, left to our own devices.

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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.

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That's because a miraculous transformation has happened in the life of that person. And that is the work of God.

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He supplies the spirit. He has done miracles and has done so that you may receive these things by faith.

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Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

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Quoting from Genesis 15 .6, Abraham had done nothing, but God simply gave him a promise and Abraham believed it.

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And it says it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham was declared right before God, not because of anything

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Abraham did, but because he believed by faith. And so then

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Paul goes on in Galatians 3 .7 to say, Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

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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, well

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I shouldn't say secularists, people who will say that they're spiritual but not religious, we'll put it that way.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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Well good, I'm glad you know Genesis 127. There's a whole other Bible that comes after that.

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Just two chapters later, what did we do with the image of God? We sinned.

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We chased after our own passions of our flesh instead of doing what we were made to do in God's image, and that's glorify him.

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And we did not fulfill that. But Adam went after what he saw with his eyes, the thing that God said not to take from.

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And he took that anyway, demonstrating by that action, I'm not satisfied with God.

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I need this other thing. And that's what we do every time we sin. Every sin is a rebellion against God.

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Every sin is a declaration of I want it my way instead of God's way.

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And we desecrated the image of God. And what we are at that point is worthy to be cast into the flames.

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That which was made in God's image that is supposed to give glory to God, and we exalted and glorified ourselves instead, we are good to be cast off, forever separated from God, because he is eternally holy, and we can never be holy.

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And so God has given his Son, Jesus, to die for our sins. And he gives his righteousness.

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So now we stand before God, and we are being remade into the image of the

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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

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Adam. So yes, we were made in the image of God. But when we sin, we follow the image of Satan.

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And when we believe by faith in Christ, we are given his righteousness as a gift.

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And we are received by our Father in heaven as his children.

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Romans 8 -29, by the way, goes on to say that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

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So we are being remade in the image of Christ so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

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We are being renewed in knowledge after the image of our Creator, as it says in Colossians 3, so that Jesus, all who follow him, we become brothers and sisters of God, and Christ is our elder brother.

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That's what that means, if you want to get theologically technical with that. So it is by faith in Christ that we have become children of God.

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You're either children of the devil or you're the children of God. Who are the children of God? Those who believe

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God and it's counted to them as righteousness. It is those of faith who are sons of Abraham.

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Those of faith are children of God. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the

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Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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I recently heard Andy Stanley say that you don't even get to the gospel until you get to the

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New Testament. Well, according to this passage right here, it's actually in Genesis 12 -3 that you would hear the gospel.

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Where it says, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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The gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham, saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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I was talking about us, ladies and gentlemen. That all who believe in Christ Jesus may also be included among those who would inherit the kingdom of God.

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So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham who is the man of faith.

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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.

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It is not by your legalism that you are even sanctified.

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

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I spend all week studying the Bible. All week long.

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I open it up. I read its pages. I go to theology textbooks. I read the theology.

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I go to church fathers, the reformers, the Puritans, the patriarchs of the early church.

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Whatever I can find to read these things to better understand the Bible in a way that maybe

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I don't understand it today. And yet, despite all of the theological study that I've done, there is a truth that blows my mind beyond any theological textbook that I could ever read.

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And it is this, and we sung it this morning. Jesus loves me.

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This I know. For the Bible tells me so.

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Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

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For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

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On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, growing together in Christ, when we understand the text.