Untitled Sermon

• Welcome

▾ Scripture Reading

• Vicky is our Scripture Reader for today and will be reading from Galatians 3.

• Galatians 3:1-5

Galatians 3:1–5 (ESV)

3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 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—

• Let’s Pray

▾ Opening

• 2024 hasn’t been a great year for politicians.

▾ But it’s been a terrible year for Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City.

• Last month, he was indicted for bribery, campaign finance offenses, and conspiracy.

• A bunch of people from his administration are also under investigation, and have resigned.

• He’s holding out, though, but 69 percent of New Yorkers think he should resign, too.

• That number, though, might be creeping up because, for some reason Mayor Adams decided to march down Fifth Avenue in a parade this week wearing this hat.

▾ That’s a hat somehow rooting for both the New York Yankees and the New York Mets.

• He wore this because both baseball teams are in the playoffs for the first time in twenty years, meaning that they could have a New York only World Series, which would be very exciting for them.

• But anyone who is a sports fan or even knows sports fans, especially New York sports fans, should know you just can’t wear that hat.

• Mayor Adams thought he could wear this hat for broad appeal, but in fact he alienated and confused everyone.

▾ Transition

▾ This was Paul’s basic beef with the false teachers in Galatia.

• Technically-speaking, they weren’t asking people to abandon the gospel

• They just wanted then to add back the law.

▾ But, for Paul, adding law to grace is like rooting for two rival teams.

• It can’t be done.

• You can’t root for both.

• You have to pick one.

▾ The key question for Paul in Galatians is, How can anyone be justified before God?

▾ On what basis can we as human beings—sinful human beings—justly stand before the Holy God, Creator of the Universe?

• Will we find our righteousness in the works of the law?

• Or will we find our righteousness in the cross of Jesus Christ?

• You can’t have both. You must pick one.

• And, for Paul, the answer is clear.

• Only one side is good enough.

Galatians 2:16 (ESV)

16 We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

▾ This is Paul’s thesis statement for the whole book.

• Over Galatians 3 and 4, Paul will defend this thesis.

• And most of his proof will be evidence from the Bible

• But before Paul walks through the Scriptures, he does an interesting thing.

• He first appeals to the Galatians own experience.

• He wants them to reflect on their own journey with Christ, and ask themselves which gospel feels more true?

Galatians 3:1–2 (ESV)

3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

▾ An Appeal to Experience

▾ I don’t know about you, but I’m often wary of appeals to experience, my own or that of others.

• Personal experience is murky—open to misinterpretation, misunderstanding, misuse.

• It is, by definition, subjective.

• And that makes it quite difficult to weigh, to know how my subjective experiences compares to your subjective experience.

• Won’t that lead to conflict, relativism, agnosticism?

▾ And, yet, Paul makes a great deal of experience in Galatians..

• In Galatians 1 he references his own experience meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, and it holds a tremendous amount of weight for Paul.

• He describes that experience as a revelation from God, an authoritative revelation.

▾ Which is wild, because before that event, Paul was already familiar with authoritative revelation.

• He was a student of God’s Holy Word,

• Having studied the Scriptures diligently for decades;

• Having labored to keep God’s law perfectly, and done a pretty good job!

• But it was his subjective experience of the Risen Jesus that made him rethink all that objective learning.

▾ And then later as a missionary, Paul witnessed that same dramatic experience happen again and again to others,

• Even Gentiles—people who weren’t Jewish like him,

• who weren’t part of God’s chosen people, who didn’t already know God’s Word, who didn’t keep God’s law

• but upon hearing the gospel, they too received the Holy Spirit.

• And that experience of watching other people’s experiences further confirmed Paul’s understanding of the gospel.

▾ Let’s not be afraid of citing our experience in matters of faith.

• Let’s not hesitate to appeal to one another’s experiences: when we give counsel, encouragement, even in challenge.

• Experiences are vital.

• Interpret them from the Scriptures, of course, in line with the rule of faith.

• We should not replace Scripture with experience, but neither should we separate them.

• They should be held together.

▾ Now, I have to admit, given my personality, my upbringing, my education, appeals to experience feel risky.

▾ Spiritually, I prefer books.

• I like theological systems, doctrinal expertise, tested practices with clear inputs and guaranteed outputs.

• I value external authorities over personal experience.

• But then I’m inevitably frustrated when these objective sources about faith don’t match my subjective experience of faith.

▾ The sociologist Hartmut Rosa has written about the modern obsession with control.

• Modern people and culture “aim to make the world controllable at every level—individual, cultural, institutional, structural.” (4)

• This has led to all kinds of amazing technological advancements, but it’s also tended to alter our experience of reality. Because,

“It is only in encountering the uncontrollable that we really experience the world. Only then do we feel touched, moved, alive. A world that is fully known, in which everything has been planned and mastered, would be a dead world.” (Hartmut Rosa, The Uncontrollability of the World, 2)

▾ We want control over our lives, and yet the defining moments in our lives—the experiences which contribute the most meaning, the times we feel most alive—usually come in encounters with reality that are outside our control.

• When you were born, when you will die. The people you love, the places and times that you live, how your calling first developed, your successes and failures, your blessings and many of your losses.

• These are what give you life.

• You can influence them a little here and there, but life rests mostly on the unpredictable and uncontrollable.

• Which is to say, it rests on grace.

• All life is grace.

▾ I wonder how much our modern desire for control creeps into our spiritual lives.

• Our preference for rigid theological systems, expert strategies, tradition and authority, works of the law.

• But remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus when he asked him how anyone could be born again.

John 3:8 (ESV)

8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

▾ That was Paul’s story, wasn’t it?

• He was doing the very opposite of what we’d expect of someone who was, in themselves, open to the Spirit of Christ.

• He was actively persecuting the church, killing Christians.

• But then the wind blew and Paul received the Spirit by grace.

▾ That was every Gentile’s story, too.

• Before hearing the gospel, they were pagans, idol-worshippers.

• But then they heard the gospel and believed.

• Paul says,

Galatians 3:1

“It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly protrayed as crucified.”

• By this, Paul means that in his ministry and preaching, they saw powerfully, vividly, viscerally how Jesus, the Son of God, the Sent Savior, was crucified for their sins.

• The gospel was so powerful to them, it was as if they saw it with their own eyes.

• And their whole life was forever changed.

• What happened? They believed what they heard and they received the Holy Spirit. After all,

1 Corinthians 12:3 (ESV)

3 No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

▾ Is this your story, too?

• If you’re a Christian, how did you first receive Christ?

• When did you first believe? What brought about faith in you?

▸ Was it something you did?

• Of course, we would all acknowledge means of grace in our stories—influential people, answered questions, key decisions, seismic events—but faith is always more than the sum of its parts.

• Like when God forms Adam in the garden of Eden from the dirt, he’s not alive until God breathes his breath into him.

• New life follows the same pattern.

▾ Did you give eternal life to yourself, through work of the law?

• Of course not.

• Then why do we worry that staying alive is about our works?

▸ Salvation is by grace through faith, from beginning to end.

Galatians 3:2-3 (ESV)

2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

▾ Illustration

• I have an earthquake kit in my house, and I’m glad I’ve never had to use it.

▾ For lots of reasons, but especially because I’ve never had to depend on that crank flashlight-radio thing.

• You know what I’m talking about?

• Where you power a flashlight by cranking a lever?

• It’s fun for about 20 seconds, before you’re exhausted and bored.

▾ Sometimes that’s how we think the Christian life works, though.

• We think it’s up to us to power the light of Christ.

• And so we exhaust ourselves cranking all the levers — the Bible study lever and the prayer lever and the obedience lever and the acts of service lever and the perfect parent lever and the God’s calling lever.

• In hopes that we might create a stronger light for ourselves.

• And we do create some artificial light, but it’s exhausting and the moment we stop, it begins to go out and we’re in the dark again.

▾ The gospel of grace doesn’t work that way.

• In Christ, we have eternal life in the Spirit — no cranking necessary.

• The fire of God’s presence burns in us, and it will burn forever, no fuel needed —

• Like the burning bush of old. Present in us, but never consuming us.

▾ Remembering Our Conversion

▾ When was the last time you remembered the dynamics of your conversion?

• I confess that I can go months without giving any thought to my faith story.

• I’m so wrapped up in my present and future anxieties that I forget the miracle that is my salvation, and how God has miraculously saved a thousand times since.

• I grew up in the church, but that doesn’t matter.

• Realistically, I should not be here. I should not have faith.

• My path does not make sense.

• And I don’t just say that theologically. I can say that experientially, knowing my story.

• A thousand other paths make more sense than mine.

▾ I’m reminded of Jesus’ line in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 7:13–14 (ESV)

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

• If you found the narrow gate, it’s a miracle. Few find it.

• Statistically, it should not have happened.

• It is only by divine intervention that you can say, Jesus is Lord.

▾ The Galatians had forgotten the miracle, the surprise, the undeserved grace that was their conversion.

• And that forgetting made them vulnerable to false gospels and false teachers.

• When we forget our stories, we too are made vulnerable.

• Vulnerable to sophisticated teachers and books and fads and strategies, who come preaching different gospels, with flattering words like “nuance” and “context.”

• “Well, you need to understand…”

▾ Isn’t that what the false teachers were saying to the Galatians?

• I really want to honor your simple faith in Christ’s death and resurrection.

• But you need to know the greater context.

• It’s still salvation by grace, but grace requires more nuance than what Paul taught you.

• Paul warned Timothy

1 Timothy 6:20–21 (ESV)

20 O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” 21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.

• He warned the Colossians

Colossians 2:8 (ESV)

8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

• We must be careful not to nuance Christ out of the gospel.

▾ Colossians 2:6 is such an important verse for the Christian life.

Colossians 2:6 (ESV)

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,

• How do we continue in Christ?

• The same way we started.

• How did we start?

Ephesians 2:8 (ESV)

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

• If you’re a Christian, you’re a Christian by grace through faith, not of works.

• And everything you do is by grace through faith, not of works.

• But it’s not enough to just recite this in theory — we need to recall our personal experience of grace.

• According to Paul, one of the first defenses against false teaching is remembering our own conversion.

Galatians 3:2–3 (ESV)

2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

▾ I bet most of us in here, if not all of us, are overdue for remembering our salvation story.

• Again, it’s Paul’s one question for the Galatians.

• In the face of false teaching, what do they most need to do?

• It’s not that they’re unprepared. They don’t need anything else.

• “Let me ask you only this.”

• Paul goes on in Verses 4 and 5, asking them to recount their suffering since believing (the hard moments of following Christ); he asks them to remember the high points, the miracles they’ve seen.

• What is common at every stage? Who is present and why was he present?

• It wasn’t the works of the law.

• It was hearing with faith. Simply believing what they heard.

▾ I want to challenge everyone here to schedule time with someone this month with the express purpose of retelling the story of how God saved you.

• Just this once, don’t talk about your current plans or struggles or needs. Talk about the past.

• Schedule an unhurried date at a comfortable place to share the unlikely miracle that is your relationship with Jesus.

• Will you do that this month?

▾ And if you’re not a Christian, I would still encourage you to make that appointment and tell your story.

• Remembering with gratefulness the uncontrollable and unplanned moments of your life, both the good and the hard, that brought you to the place you are today.

• As you recount your story, maybe you’ll see an invisible presence there with you at every step, the Spirit of God guiding your way. Talk to him.

▾ Conclusion

▾ I was reminded last week—I actually don’t know why—of an old hymn that was my grandmother’s favorite hymn, “Victory in Jesus.”

• Number 426 in the Baptist Hymnal.

• I don’t why it came to mind, but I was frustrated because I couldn’t remember the lyrics.

• And I was disappointed in myself.

• How could I forget?

▾ So I went home and looked it up in the very hymnal my grandmother gave me because I played the piano.

• “David — This is my favorite of all songs. Learn to play it well for me. Grandmother.”

• Victory in Jesus

I heard an old, old story

How a Savior came from glory

How He gave his life on Calvary

To save a wretch like me

I heard about his groaning

Of His precious blood’s atoning

Then I repented of my sins

And won the victory.

Victory in Jesus, my Savior forever

He sought me and he bought me

With his redeeming blood.

He loved me ere I knew him

And all my love is due him.

He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood.

• It’s a simple song, but it includes everything I need to know.

▾ What are the songs you’ve forgotten?

• What are the key moments, the key influences, the important points of your story that you’ve let slip?

• When has the gospel been so vivid to you that it was as if you had seen Christ publicly portrayed as crucified?

• Recall that moment.

• And if you are not a Christian, and you want to be one, pray and ask God for faith to hear his voice.

• If you want to be saved, ask God to take you by the hand and help you find the narrow gate.

• It’s not enough to know about God.

▾ Salvation is knowing God.

• The Italian friar Raniero Cantalamessa, who has been the preacher to the pope since 1980, wrote about his own filling with the Spirit when he was already an academic expert in Christology:

"I knew so many things about Jesus: doctrines and heresies and explanations ancient and new. But the discovery of Jesus as “Lord” that came to me along with the baptism in the Spirit wrought a great change that I would never have been able to achieve by myself alone.

Apart from the Holy Spirit we can known nothing but a “dead” Christ. The risen Christ lives in the Spirit. For Christ is in fact the living Jesus, the risen one who is alive in the Spirit: not theories and doctrines about Jesus, but Jesus himself.

When I read Paul’s exclamation “I want to know him” that simple little “him” seemed to me to contain infinitely more than all the books I had ever read or written. There is a difference between the real, living Jesus and the Jesus you find in books and learned discussions about him;

it is the same as the difference between the real sky and a penciled sketch of the sky on a piece of paper." (Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Come Creator Spirit, 363-364)

• Salvation is knowing the real thing, the living Jesus, and it comes not through works of the law, but only by hearing with faith.

▾ You cannot achieve it yourself.

• There are no works you can do, no ritual, no performance. You can’t make it make sense.

• Salvation comes only through hearing with faith, and hearing is a funny thing.

▾ You can’t make yourself hear something.

• You can only be quiet.

• You can only take away your hands, remove the things in your life and heart which obstruct your hearing.

• But then you just have to wait and listen for the voice of God as you stare at the cross of Christ.

• The innocent one who graciously died for you and your sins, because he loves you and wants to give you life and peace and joy.

• You cannot achieve these things on your own.

• You cannot stand before God on your own.

• But you don’t have to stand on your own — Christ stands for you and with you.

• Do you believe? Do you remember?

• It’s an old, old story. But it’s a good one, and it’s true.