Sermon Tone Analysis

Galatians 3:1-9

 

It’s been said that “There are none so blind as those who /will not/ see”.

When it came to “seeing” the gospel as Paul presented it in Galatia, he would say the Galatians were willfully blind.

It’s a heartbreaking pity when you’ve done everything you can to present a life-changing message clearly, only to have that message disregarded or distorted.

The frustration of this reality brought out some of the strongest language in an epistle already filled with strong language.

Paul was hot with passion for the gospel!

His exasperation reaches its zenith in the third chapter of Galatians.

Let’s turn to Galatians chapter three and look at the first nine verses this morning.

In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand for the reading of the Scriptures.

You foolish Galatians!

Who has bewitched you?

Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?  3 Are you so foolish?

After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

4 Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing?  5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

 

6 Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.

8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”  9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

[NIV]

 

[Prayer] In these verses, Paul decimates our reliance on any human work as a means of being made right with God.

He begins right where we are, with our own experience as exhibit A. Namely…

 

*I.

Christian experience* *demonstrates* *that the gospel is received by faith alone *(1-5).

We see this in verses 1-5.

Sometimes spiritual truths appear so simple in form, yet become complex when we try to put them into practice.

It’s a paradox.

There are undoubtedly hidden spiritual forces… dark forces that make God’s truth hard to see and difficult to apply.

The elementary nature of some spiritual truths make us think we should be able to apply them easily to our lives.

But it seldom works out that way.

When the gospel is distorted, it’s not good news anymore.

It can become a burden to bear.

That’s the way it seemed in Galatia.

In Paul’s mind, they seemed to be under an evil spell of some kind; according to John Stott, this may have been Paul’s exasperated diagnosis /of the reason behind/ the spiritual apostasy he was witnessing.

It was clear to the Galatians that Jesus Christ was crucified for their redemption.

This takes us to the very heart of the gospel.

The gospel is not just instructions about the Jesus of history; /it is the spirit-filled proclamation of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners/.

The Galatians saw this as Paul had presented it to them.

They once understood the implications of justification by grace alone through faith alone.

But now they were acting as if they never understood the gospel from the beginning… as if they never saw… and never heard.

They were adding works to the gospel.

You know, there’s something tragically incongruent when we say we believe the truth, but then fail to live it.

We always have to make the distinc-tion—we aren’t saved by works; but the gospel that saves always /produces/ works as a result of being saved.

One is the root, the other is the fruit.

The Galatians had blurred that distinction.

Paul said: “You foolish Galatians!

Who has bewitched you?” Now that’s strong language.

I love the way J.B. Phillips rendered this verse: “O you dear idiots of Galatia… surely you can’t be so idiotic.”

Paul said this because they were listening to (and obeying) the false teachers; they imposed ceremonial law as a means of finding favor with God.

The implication of this verse is that “only a sorcerer’s spell could make a person leave God’s way after he truly sees it.”

For us, the message of Galatians is so practical.

Our influences drive our behaviors.

We must be in God’s word to be influenced by God’s word.

There’s no substitute for knowing God’s word and growing in it.

Come to the Bible everyday; be consistent.

It helps to have a specific plan.

Don’t read the Bible randomly; that yields random results and frustration.

Some people approach God’s word, like a vitamin to ward off the virus of spiritual decline (a little dab’ll do ya), but we should approach God’s word as a banquet meal to satisfy our starving souls… where we return again and again to find nourishment and assurance!

Those who never find the time to study the Bible will gradually find themselves “bewitched”; /bewitched/ by the competing influences around them.

Our culture is bewitched with many so-called acceptable sins.

Even large parts of the evangelical church are bewitched with hidden vices that corrupt as well as enslave.

That’s why we need to make much of God’s glorious gospel!

That’s why we need to make the truth of God’s word /easy/ to understand, /hard/ to forget, and /impossible/ to ignore.

Anything that influences us more than God’s Word, casts a spell.

So to break the spell, Paul reminds them of their Christian experience beginning with the Holy Spirit.

Look at verses 2 and 3.

 

2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing

the law, or by believing what you heard?  3 Are you so foolish?

After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

[3:2-3]          

 

Paul takes them back to the beginning of the Christian life, when they first /received/ the Spirit.

Before they believed the gospel, they had no filling of the Holy Spirit.

Observing the law never gave them the Spirit’s power to obey it.

It was only through believing in Jesus that the power of God entered their life, even if they had never heard of the Law, or never kept its commandments.

The Galatians were a lot like us.

Many of them were Gentile believers who had never been exposed to the Law of Moses.

They had never undergone ceremonial rites of passage; They had never been through a ritual cleansing, or abstained from certain foods (pass the barbeque).

It would be like someone coming into this church to convince us that to be “more saved” than we are in Jesus, then we need to start keeping the Law of Moses.

That would be absurd.

The only thing more ludicrous than suggesting that you can be “more saved” than you are in Christ, is the fact that some of the Galatians actually believed it!

They were bewitched!

Their own experience proved that justification comes through Christ apart from anything else.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the law for Christians; He is our righteousness; He is our circumcision and cleansing from defilement.

He is our assurance before the Father.

We begin the Christian life at the moment the Spirit enters us.

Paul reminds them that that’s how the Christian life began for them.

But the most important part of your testimony is not what happened /back then/, or where you /were/ when you believed the gospel, or how you felt /back then/; the most important question is always, “Where are you /now/ with Christ?

What’s happening now?

How is your relationship right /now/?” It’s like your marriage relationship… the greatest indicator of how healthy your marriage is, is /not/ how you felt on your wedding day; it’s how you’re doing now, how you’re honoring the covenant and serving each other right now, when it’s difficult, or boring, or just plain unfair.

That’s reality.

For the Galatians, their own Christian experience was ample evidence that the gospel is /received/ by faith alone apart from works.

And the message of these verses is that the Gospel is /lived/ daily by faith alone apart from works.

And the Gospel will be /fulfilled/ in your life by faith alone apart from works.

You will get to glory by faith alone apart from works.

There will never come a time in your life when the flesh must complete what the Spirit began.

So it is for you and me.

If we are Christians at all this morning, it is solely by the indwelling Spirit of God who keeps us in the fellowship of Jesus.

If God is truly our Father, then Christ is our Mediator, and the Holy Spirit is our Advocate.

Paul further reminds the Galatians of their Christian experience through suffering and miracles in verses 4 and 5:

 

4 Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing?

5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

Paul is asking some good, leading questions.