Faith or Flesh

Introduction

SCRIPTURE: O 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? 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.

STORY: Roy Reigels going the other direction in the bowl game.

PROPOSITION: FAITH is how God SAVED you, and FAITH is how God will KEEP you.

INTERROGATIVE: As a Christian do you ever feel like you’re missing out on something in your faith? Like you need to go to the next “level” in your spiritual life? Non Christian do you ever feel like having faith in Jesus and being saved is just too good to be true? Like there has GOT to be more to it than this?

TRANSITION: And point 1 is this...

Faith Failed

You don’t have to TWIST God’s arm to receive GRACE from Him.

God is not sitting up in heaven begrudgingly waiting for you to do something good for Him so that He HAS to bless you. This type of thinking of God is what births in a persons heart the burden to constantly EARN God’s favor and love and mercy because that is what He expects. When that is not how the Word of God describes God Himself. He describes Himself to be longsuffering, patience, loving, kind, gentle, RICH in mercy, LAVISHLY pouring out grace, correcting those that he loves, etc.

You doing more THINGS for God doesn’t gain you more FAVOR from God. (Titus 3:3-7 “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of the works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”)

Don’t build a RESUME, build up RELIANCE.

Why do we feel the need to do everything ourselves? God is constantly calling us to have faith in Him. Faith that He will provide, Faith that He will work, Faith that He knows best when we don’t, Faith that He has known this situation before we do and He is going to work in the midst of it. Does that mean that we don’t do anything we just sit around? NO. We listen to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and we do what they say IN FAITH that His promises are true and He has our best interest in mind. (Trust fall exercise)

Continued Faith

Faith comes from God, and so does our transformation EVERY day.

The way we have been justified (made right in the eyes of God) is the same way that we will be sanctified (molded into the image of Christ). (Philippians 1:6 “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”)

It is not BEHAVING that moves God to act graciously but BELIEVING.

God is generous to us!

God’s great power is what continues to give us grace! The more that you are convinced of the greatness of God’s power, the less you are inclined to depend on yourself and your own work. To stress the works of the law implies God’s lack of ability or His lack of willingness to act. Belief relies on God to act; law keeping suggests that you have to take matters into your own hands.

APPLICATION

Faith strengthens through EXPERIENCE with God.

Faith comes first, and faith comes FINAL.

Discontentment is the basis for DECEPTION.