Praying with Paul: Living By Faith
Praying with Paul • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Intro:
1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
Tonight, we will continue [Praying with Paul]. The subject of my message is, [Living By Faith].
Since the late 1800s, technology has made advances that has made all of our lives so much easier. Truth be told, we probably take all that we have for granted, that it until what we have doesn’t or won’t work.
For instance, who remember losing power for a few days earlier this year. For some reason, ours was not off very long. But in the few hours it was, I told Bekah, “I would not have ever made it in the good ole days.”
I have thought of three inventions that have made life easier. Most everyone has these and they constantly make new models and update the equipment.
When I show these pictures, I want us to ask, which one would we HONESTLY prefer:
washboard— it can get the work done, but it is so much easier with a washer, as long as it has an agitator.
lawnmower— surely when this antique mower was invented, it made life easier. But a zero turn or riding mower is so much easier.
typewriter— typewriters made life easier, but it would be hard to go back.
Truthfully, if I came to visit someone and found they had cut their electric, and lived life like people did decades ago, I might think, what has got ahold of them?
I thought of this when I read the first verse of Galatians 3. Paul was much more forceful, WHO HAS BEWITCHED YOU?
Why was he so adamant in his words?
The Galatians, who were saved, walked in the power of the Holy Spirit, and knew the truth wanted to go back. They wanted to trade the work of the Spirit for the work of the law.
We could also say that they wanted to require the law above faith.
Paul’s remedy for this is to remind them of the Holy Spirit and Scripture.
The Holy Spirit makes life better.
It would be foolish for us, as Spirit-filled believers to return to a time in life where we were void of the Spirit’s work and influence.
So I want us to see that when we trust the Spirit, we will live by faith. How do we live by faith?
I have three points, [Receive the Spirit], [Supply of the Spirit], and [Rely on the Scriptures].
Let’s begin
1. Receive the Spirit
1. Receive the Spirit
2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
4 Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
Paul had genuine concern for the Galatian churches. Notice I churches is plural. There was not a church in Galatian. Galatians was written to many churches in the Galatian region.
Paul’s first mission’s trip was to the Galatians. Not long after he left, false teacher came in and told the people that they needed to obey the Law of Moses in order to stay saved.
When Paul heard about this, he promptly wrote them a letter to correct their heresy. Therefore, Galatians is the first letter that Paul wrote.
He asks them, how did you receive the Holy Spirit?
Was it through the law of Moses?
That question did not even require an answer.
No one can receive the Spirit by keeping the Law, instead, it comes through faith, or by believing in the Gospel, the message of Christ.
Later, Paul also told the Corinthians:
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The Law focused on the requirements of God. And if we were to read the entire Old Testament right now, we would find that there is not ONE person who kept the Law of God in its entirety.
That is why God sent Jesus. If the Law is about requirements, the Spirit is about relationship.
The Galatians started their lives in the Spirit, now they wanted to revert to becoming perfect through their own human effort.
When do we receive the Holy Spirit?
God gives us His Spirit when we are born again. When we get saved, we are born of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit helps us do what God calls us to do.
Living by faith begins when we receive the Holy Spirit.
2. Supply of the Spirit
2. Supply of the Spirit
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Notice the tense of the word supplies, it is not supplied or will supply, but supplies, meaning it is an ongoing process.
The word supply literally means to supply fully or abundantly, to generously provide what is needed, or to cover the cost completely.
We receive the Holy Spirit at conversion, but there is a supply of the Spirit that will empower us to do all God calls us to do.
I want to interject here and emphasize the importance of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote as a man who was full of the Spirit, speaking in tongues more than anyone.
Because of His dependence on the power of the Spirit, God continued to supply His Spirit and confirm His word with miracles.
When Paul arrived to the Galatian region on his first mission trip, his work for God was categorized by the miraculous.
He and Barnabas were sent on the trip as a result of a word by prophets.
They confronted a sorcerer and prevailed in Cyprus
Cities were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit Iconium
God granted signs and wonders through them Antioch
A crippled man walked in Lystra
Paul was stoned and God raised him up at Derbe
There were many miraculous events that took place because God supplies the Spirit.
Now Paul remind them, don’t go back to a life without the supply of the Spirit.
I like the way he explained in to the church in Ephesus:
18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
God wants us to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and to continuously walk in His power.
Living by faith includes receiving the Spirit, the supply of the Spirit, and...
3. Relying on Scriptures
3. Relying on Scriptures
6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.”
9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
Paul then goes back to a hero of the faith— Abraham.
Every Jewish person felt a strong connection with Abraham, the father of many nations. Paul reminds them of him and informs them, Abraham was righteous because of his faith, not because of the Law.
How could he say this?
The Law of God was given to Moses, who lived over 400 years after Abraham died. How could Abraham be required to live according to a law that was never given?
So the real children of Abraham are not those who keep the Law, but those who have faith in God.
Some might have recoiled at his words, so Paul reminded them:
Scripture looked forward to a time when God would make Gentiles right with God because of their faith.
So now, WHOEVER HAS FAITH is a child of Abraham.
5 And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
6 So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
16 And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
8 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
Living by faith in essential to our walk with God. We grow in faith by reading Scripture.
Close:
Living by faith might sound good, but at times it can be difficult.
Who has ever struggled living by faith?
When we begin to lack faith, we face the temptation to return to what we think will work.
That is what the Galatians did, they wanted to return to the Law, but Paul reminded them, we have to live by faith.
God has given us a solution:
receive the Spirit
depend on the supply of the Spirit
rely on Scripture