Final 8.16 for slides

This is photo of the St Als hospital building that’s being constructed off of the connector right outside of downtown. We see lots of buildings like this going up these days around Boise. I love watching these large structures get built with the huge cranes and I like to keep up with the progress that they make as the construction goes along.And it’s interesting because once the building is complete, we never think twice about all of these steel girders that stand within it. And as it is constructed, you have steel beams that are set into the foundation, and then you have beams that begin to be connected to each other, and as they are connected to each other, what once may have been a wobbly beam becomes stable and as more beams are connected to each other eventually an internal structure becomes established. And this is often a slow process. Here’s another photo of a building going up on front street downtown. And this one is pouring concrete. I think this is an apartment building, but they’re also putting a parking garage. With this building it seemed like nobody was doing anything with it for a long time, but in reality it was allowing time for the concrete to set before they could move on. And it took a long time.But regardless of what type of building materials are used it takes time and care to construct an internal structure like this. And without this internal structure, properly built, the building will be unstable and the more unstable it is internally the more vulnerable it will be to what is external, but it will also be more vulnerable to collapsing not to external forces but to its own weight. Without this internal structure, held together by interconnected beams or maybe concrete, established slowly over time the structure is unstable, vulnerable and at risk.So, you might be thinking that I’m getting ready to launch into a message about the importance of developing relationships within the church, but I’m not. Pastor Mike spoke about that replay last week, and if I spoke again about that it would be a replay of a replay. I like to speak about the interconnected and relational church, but today I’m going to speak about something much more individually oriented. Today’s message isn’t about the internal structure of the church, it’s about the internal structure of our faith.The Bible also uses these types of architectural images to describe our spiritual life. Jesus is the cornerstone. We are built into a holy temple for the purpose of containing God upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ being the cornerstone. Today we’re going to talk about Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, and this isn’t a verse that was a part of any of the sermon series that we had over the past year, but it was a verse that was preached on during our Baptism Service in last winter. I wanted dig back into this verse specifically because, even though it’s only one verse, within it, there are several really important beams are buttresses that are core to the internal structure of our faith, and we can learn from Paul about how to join them together. So today’s message is titled No Longer I, and it’s going to be a very practical message, and its very much oriented to what’s in here, not what’s out here.

This is photo of the St Als hospital building that’s being constructed off of the connector right outside of downtown. We see lots of buildings like this going up these days around Boise. I love watching these large structures get built with the huge cranes and I like to keep up with the progress that they make as the construction goes along.And as it is constructed, you have steel beams that are set into the foundation, and then you have beams that begin to be connected to each other, and as they are connected to each other, what once may have been a wobbly beam becomes stable and as more beams are connected to each other eventually an internal structure becomes established. And it’s interesting because once the building is complete, we never think twice about all of these steel girders that stand within it. And this is often a slow process. Here’s another photo of a building going up on front street downtown. And this one is pouring concrete. I think this is an apartment building, but they’re also putting a parking garage. With this building it seemed like nobody was doing anything with it for a long time, but in reality it was allowing time for the concrete to set before they could move on. And it took a long time.But regardless of what type of building materials are used it takes time and care to construct an internal structure like this. And without this internal structure, properly built, the building will be unstable and the more unstable it is internally the more vulnerable it will be to what is external, but not only that, it will also be more vulnerable to collapsing not to external forces but to its own weight, collapsing in on itself. Without this internal structure, held together by interconnected beams or maybe concrete, established slowly over time the structure is unstable, given time to set, the building is vulnerable and at risk.So, you might be thinking that I’m getting ready to launch into a message about the importance of developing relationships within the church, but I’m not. Pastor Mike spoke about that replay last week, and if I spoke again about that it would be a replay of a replay. I like to speak about the interconnected and relational church, but today I’m going to speak about something much more individually oriented. Today’s message isn’t about the internal structure of the church, it’s about the internal structure of our faith.The Bible also uses these types of architectural images to describe our spiritual life. Jesus is described as the cornerstone. He talks about building on sand or on rock, choosing building materials, counting the cost of building. We are built into a holy temple for the purpose of containing God upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ being the cornerstone. So this type of construction oriented language goes back a long way as a concrete illustration of our spiritual reality. Today we’re going to talk about Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.and this isn’t a verse that was a part of any of the sermon series that we had over the past year, but it was a verse that was preached on during our Baptism Service in last winter. I wanted dig back into this verse specifically because, even though it’s only one verse, within it, there are several really important beams are buttresses that are core to the internal structure of our faith, and we can learn from Paul about how to join them together. So today’s message is titled No Longer I, and it’s going to be a very practical message, and its very much oriented to what’s in here, not what’s out here.

8.16.19 FinalToday we’re going to talk about Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.and this isn’t a verse that was a part of any of the sermon series that we had over the past year, but it was a verse that was preached on during our Baptism Service in last winter. I wanted dig back into this verse specifically because, even though it’s only one verse, within it, there are several really important steel beams or buttresses that are core to the internal structure of our faith, and we can learn from Paul about how to join them together, so that they’ll better support our Christian life. So today’s message is going to be a very practical message, and its very much oriented to what’s in here, not what’s out here.This is photo of the St Als hospital building that’s being constructed off of the connector right outside of downtown. There are lots of buildings like this going up around Boise these days. I love watching these large structures get built with the huge cranes lifting the steel girders and I like to watch the progress that they make as the construction goes along.And as these types of buildings are constructed, you have steel beams that are set into the foundation, and then you have beams that begin to be connected to each other, and as they are connected to each other, what once may have been a wobbly beam becomes more stable and as more beams are connected to each other eventually an internal structure becomes established. And it’s interesting because once the building is complete, we never think twice about all of these steel girders that stand within it and hold it up. But regardless of what type of building materials are used it takes time and care to construct an internal structure like this. And without this internal structure the building will be unstable and the more unstable it is internally the more vulnerable it will be to external forces, but not only that, it will also be more vulnerable to its own weight, and to collapsing in on itself. Without this internal structure, held together by interconnected beams or maybe concrete, given the opportunity to be established slowly over time the structure is unstable and vulnerable.So, you might be thinking that I’m getting ready to launch into a message about the importance of developing relationships within the church and being connected with each other, but today I’m going to speak about something much more individually oriented. Today’s message isn’t about the internal structure of the church, it’s about the internal structure of our faith.The Bible also uses these types of architectural images to describe our spiritual life. Jesus is described as the cornerstone. He talks about building on sand or on rock, choosing building materials, counting the cost of building. We are described as being built into a holy temple for the purpose of containing God and that happens on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ being the cornerstone. So this type of construction oriented language goes back a long way as a concrete illustration of our spiritual reality.

Alright, this is it for summer, last day before school. This is one of the most ambivalent times of the year for kids and parents alike. It’s happy/sad. Kids are excited to go back to school but also don’t want to get up every day. Parents are ready for bit more structure and routine but are going to miss their kids. But school is coming either way.

And we’re wrapping up the summer here at the Journey over the next few weeks doing a replay series where we look back and highlight of few of the important themes we’ve gone over throughout the past year. And today, I’m going to speak on a verse that wasn’t a part of any of the sermon series over the past year, but it was a verse that was preached on during our Baptism Service last winter. we’re going to look back at Galatians chapter 2 verse 20,

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20 ESV

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I wanted dig back into this verse specifically because, even though it’s only one verse, it contains several really important elements to the structure of our faith.

The Bible occasionally uses architectural images to describe our spiritual life. Jesus tells a parable about building on rock or on sand. In Ephesians Paul writes about being built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ being the chief cornerstone. Jesus tells another parable about counting the cost before deciding to build a tower.

This is photo of the St Als hospital building that’s being constructed off of the connector right outside of downtown. There are lots of buildings like this going up around Boise these days. I love watching these large structures get built with the huge cranes lifting the steel girders and you can see the steady progress as the construction goes along.

And as these types of buildings are constructed, you have steel beams that are set into the foundation, and then they begin to be connected to each other, and as they are connected to each other, they become more stable and eventually establish an internal structure. And it’s interesting because once the building is complete, we never think about all of these steel girders that stand within it and hold it up. And without this internal structure the building will be unstable, it would be more vulnerable to external forces, but also be more vulnerable to its own weight, and internal forces.

So, if you’re wondering, I’m not going to speak about the importance of developing relationships within the church and being connected with each other, Mike spoke about that last week, and that would be like doing a replay of a replay, but today I’m going to speak about something much more individually oriented. So today’s message is about the internal structure of our personal faith and how our spiritual beliefs stabilize our Christian lives.

Alright, first things first before we actually dig into this verse, let’s pan out and identify some of the broader dynamics going on in Paul’s letter to the Galatians and this will help us when we get into the specifics of this verse.Paul’s letter to the Galatians, is a letter about freedom, specifically about our freedom in Christ. This is summed in a famous verse towards the end of this letter, in verse 1 of Chapter 5, which say 5 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. You could argue that this is Paul’s objective in writing this letter. That the Galatian church would enjoy the freedom that Christ has given us, but it’s also warning, conversely, that we wouldn’t enter back into slavery. Enjoy your freedom that Christ has provided you, but do not enter back into slavery. This is a positive theme, there’s a positive sense about this.But, if we look at the very beginning of this letter, the tone of the letter is quite different. In fact, In its opening, it seems like a contentious letter where Paul is expressing his most surly self. He is clearly no not happy with the church in Galatia. In all of Paul’s other letters he begins by telling them how he loves and prays for them, but in the beginning of this letter he launches into an attack on their practice of the faith and accuses them of turning away from the gospel. In verse 6 of chapter 1 he writes,6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.So Paul comes out of the bell throwing uppercuts and using really strong language. He goes on from here to remind them that he has been accepted by the apostles in Jerusalem and so has apostolic authority, and after that he writes about the famous public argument he had with the apostle Peter. And what’s going on is that Paul planted this church and then he went on his way to continue his ministry and his missionary work and word got back to him that some other teachers had come into this congregation and were teaching something other than what he had taught them about Christ and the gospel, that they needed to practice the Jewish law, including circumcision, in addition to having faith in Christ in order to be justified by God, to be declared righteous. And so he’s saying, there is only one gospel truth and its the one I preached to you, your righteousness is through faith in Christ alone, not through being circumcized, not through performing good works, and it doesn’t matter who teaches you something different, don’t believe it. Right even if an angel comes and teaches something different than what I taught, don’t believe it.But even though Paul has this edgy tone in his letter, he also maintains a clear concern and affection for them as well. He is fighting for them. He is contending for them, contending for their souls, against false teaching which is resulting in their spiritual slavery. Remember that the main themes of this letter is our freedom in Christ, and Paul says that they lost their freedom and they he goes on to talk about exactly how this happened. So, in verse 1 of chapter 3 Paul writes,3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.If you type “bewitch” it says “to cast a spell over” or “to enchant and delight.” Insert Bewitched image. The Greek word used here is “baskainō” and its defined as “to practice black magic on” or the word could also be translated as delude (inferring a use of magic). Now we might read right over this word as we’re reading Galatians and minimize it and not give it second thought, but Paul chose this word for reason, he’s stating that someone has cast a spell over them. That someone has spoken something to the church there, and its begun to define their view of reality and the nature of their relationship with God in such a way that they had been led back into spiritual bondage. And the greatest irony of this is that their bondage was in fact their belief that they had to work their way out of their bondage, even though in reality they would never be able to do so, and more importantly that Christ has already won their freedom for them. Imagine this, your mind becomes imprisoned within idea that you need to work your out of the prison even thought there is an open door right in front of you.Paul is saying that someone has cast a spell on them, and following this, throughout the rest of the letter he gets to work undoing that spell introduction he gets to work undoing that spell.Now, let’s pan out even farther, and look at this idea of bewitching not just within Galatians, but as a theme that runs through the entire narrative of the Bible. Because in the Bible we see that just like in this church in Galatia that human beings struggle to discern truth from lies. We can be enchanted or delighted to believe in something that seems good and appears good but leads directly to our spiritual slavery. [INSERT MEDIA of lion witch and wardrobe]When we read the Bible we are reminded that ultimately the backdrop of reality is a spiritual one, we may not always be able to see it or perceive, but that’s the statement that’s being made. The ultimate backdrop of life is not biological, psychological, intellectual, financial, emotional, sexual, chemical, or physical - it’s spiritual. All of these things are a part of God’s creation, but ultimately, God is spirit, and so the ultimate bedrock of reality is spiritual. In the beginning of the Bible, in the very first chapters of Genesis, we see the spiritual reality of God transposed over God’s creation, and it was paradise. But then we see that Paradise distorted by the influence of the serpent, who speaks something which enters into the minds of Adam and Eve, and they are enchanted and delighted and then willingly enter into spiritual bondage. The point of the early chapters of Genesis is to give us a window into the the spiritual reality of Creation and what happened as a result of Satan influencing that reality through Adam and Eve. That paradise becomes something very different, and the very idea of who we are and what reality is and what life is became twisted and distorted. And again, we’re looking into a spiritual reality that we can’t necessarily perceive into, it’s behind the scenes. But if we don’t start there, with God’s creation of Paradise, and then the subsequent distortion of paradise through the bewitching of the Serpent, the rest of the Bible is going to struggle to make sense to us. The beginning of the Bible shows how Satan influenced humanity, and then it tells a story of how God addressed the work of Satan. The beginning says this is how this started through this deception, and then if we turn all the way towards the end of the Bible, and it tells us clearly this is how this ended. And I’m not talking about Revelation, I’m talking about 1 John 3:… The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Notice the use of the word “appear” Jesus wasn’t created through birth like you and I were, Jesus exists eternally, and He chose to appear. Jesus is the incarnation of God who “appeared” within creation to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus is God, in the form of a man, and He is ultimately taking care of all of this. None of us are taking on Satan by ourselves. Without Jesus, we are guppies in a fishbowl to him. But in order for this to make sense we have to accept that the our ultimate reality is an unseen spiritual one, and that there is a powerful malevolent entity within that spiritual reality who is intent on debasing us as human beings through lies about who and what we are. And the result is broken marriages, and broken families and addiction, and sexual impurity, and financial greed, and emotional insecurity and depression and frustration and anger ultimately leading us to believe that there is no purpose to life and therefore there must be no God.But the message of Jesus is clear. He calls us to open our eyes to truth and to look at the way we have lived, to repent of that way of life, to turn towards God through declaring that Jesus is, in fact, God and Lord of all, including me, and that he died on the cross for the forgiveness of how we have lived and as a result of His work on the Cross we are now declared righteous in the sight of God. In Christ, we are free from guilt and shame. And this letter to the Galatians is about deception and the binding that comes through deception, but more importantly it’s the truth and the freedom comes through the truth.So when we pan all the way out the story of the Bible is very simple, God created Paradise, Satan distorted paradise, Jesus came to undo that distortion. So the mission of Jesus was to undo the works of the devil, and the mission of Paul in this letter is to undo the works of whoever was spreading this false teaching, specifically that people had to be circumzied and follow the law to be deemed righteouse in the eyes of God, that our spiritual salvation was the result of checking off boxes of particular behaviors, our good works.

Alright, let’s take a step back and look some of the broader dynamics going on in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This letter is ultimately a letter about our freedom in Christ. This is summarized in a famous verse towards the end of this letter, in verse 1 of Chapter 5, which says 5 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. So Paul’s objective in writing this letter is that the Galatian church would enjoy the freedom that Christ had given them, but there’s also a warning attached to it. And to be fair this is one of Paul’s most surly and maybe edgy letters. So when we’re looking into Galatians we need to be really careful and thoughtful with Paul’s tone, especially at the beginning of this letter, so that we don’t lose sight of his clear affection for the church. Paul is fighting and contending for this church so that they don’t lose the spiritual freedom that he is referring to. That’s the purpose of his letter.And what’s going on is that Paul planted this church and then he went on his way to continue his ministry and his missionary work and word got back to him that some other Jewish teachers had come into this congregation in Galatia and were teaching that non-Jews, Gentiles, needed to be circumcised and practice the Jewish law in addition to having faith in Christ in order to be justified by God.And of course the whole glory and beauty of the Christian faith is that God loves us so much that He accomplished our justification for us through Jesus entering into creation and sacrificing Himself on the Cross. Our spiritual freedom comes from having faith in the goodness and work of Christ, not from earning it through being a good person or through our own spiritual accomplishments. So if we go backwards a few verses to Galatians 2: 15,1615 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet 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. Now as an aside, as it relates to freedom in Christ, it’s important to mention also, that Paul qualifies this in verse 13 of chapter 5.13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.He’s saying you’re free because you believe in Jesus, that’s how that works, but that doesn’t mean that you should therefore just go and indulge in every act of wanton self gratification that comes to mind. It means that Christ has set you free to love. That the purpose of Christ setting you free so that you can be free to love.So how did this happen? We know that someone began teaching the Jewish law, but how exactly did this happen. Verse 1 of chapter 3 says3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.If you type “bewitch” it says “to cast a spell over” or “to enchant and delight.” Insert Bewitched image. The Greek word that Paul used here is “baskainō” and its defined as “to practice black magic on” or the word could also be translated as “to use magic to delude.” Now we might read right over this word as we’re reading Galatians and minimize it and not give it second thought, but Paul chose this word for reason, he’s stating that someone has cast a spell over them. He’s not suggesting that someone is practicing some type magical incantation … but that a group of people have influenced the church in such a way that has caused them to lose sight of Christ. This type of dynamic, where someone influences people to lose the good things that God has given us is not specific to Galatians. This is a theme that runs through the entire narrative of the Bible. From Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are enchanted and delighted by the idea that they can be like God and then willingly, though unknowingly, enter into spiritual bondage through the bewitching of the Serpent. And then the rest of the story of the Bible is about Jesus coming to undo the work of this spiritual darkness. 1 John 3 says… The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.Turkish Delight[INSERT MEDIA of lion witch and wardrobe] Does anyone know what Turkish Delight is? Turkish delight is the dessert that the witch in the lion witch and warddrobe uses to enslave Edmund who was one of the four children in that movie. And ultimately the hero of that movie, Aslan, who represents Christ, sacrifices his life in order to secure Edmund’s freedom.Because in the Bible we see that just like in this church in Galatia, human beings struggle to discern truth from lies. We can be enchanted or delighted to believe in something that seems good and appears good but leads directly to spiritual slavery.So when we step all the way back to see the whole story of the Bible, that story is very simple, God created Paradise, Satan distorted paradise, Jesus came to undo that distortion and to restore humanity. And this letter to the Galatians is no different, people were being deceived and led back into spiritual slavery that Paul talks about through deception, and so Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit writes to them to free them of that deception and remind them of the truth which is in Christ.

This is photo of the St Als hospital building that’s being constructed off of the connector right outside of downtown. We see lots of buildings like this going up these days around Boise. I love watching these large structures get built with the huge cranes and I like to keep up with the progress that they make as the construction goes along.And as it is constructed, you have steel beams that are set into the foundation, and then you have beams that begin to be connected to each other, and as they are connected to each other, what once may have been a wobbly beam becomes stable and as more beams are connected to each other eventually an internal structure becomes established. And it’s interesting because once the building is complete, we never think twice about all of these steel girders that stand within it. And this is often a slow process. Here’s another photo of a building going up on front street downtown. And this one is pouring concrete. I think this is an apartment building, but they’re also putting a parking garage. With this building it seemed like nobody was doing anything with it for a long time, but in reality it was allowing time for the concrete to set before they could move on. And it took a long time.But regardless of what type of building materials are used it takes time and care to construct an internal structure like this. And without this internal structure, properly built, the building will be unstable and the more unstable it is internally the more vulnerable it will be to what is external, but not only that, it will also be more vulnerable to collapsing not to external forces but to its own weight, collapsing in on itself. Without this internal structure, held together by interconnected beams or maybe concrete, established slowly over time the structure is unstable, given time to set, the building is vulnerable and at risk.So, you might be thinking that I’m getting ready to launch into a message about the importance of developing relationships within the church, but I’m not. Pastor Mike spoke about that replay last week, and if I spoke again about that it would be a replay of a replay. I like to speak about the interconnected and relational church, but today I’m going to speak about something much more individually oriented. Today’s message isn’t about the internal structure of the church, it’s about the internal structure of our faith.The Bible also uses these types of architectural images to describe our spiritual life. Jesus is described as the cornerstone. He talks about building on sand or on rock, choosing building materials, counting the cost of building. We are built into a holy temple for the purpose of containing God upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ being the cornerstone. So this type of construction oriented language goes back a long way as a concrete illustration of our spiritual reality. Today we’re going to talk about Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.and this isn’t a verse that was a part of any of the sermon series that we had over the past year, but it was a verse that was preached on during our Baptism Service in last winter. I wanted dig back into this verse specifically because, even though it’s only one verse, within it, there are several really important beams are buttresses that are core to the internal structure of our faith, and we can learn from Paul about how to join them together. So today’s message is titled No Longer I, and it’s going to be a very practical message, and its very much oriented to what’s in here, not what’s out here.

Alright, before we dig into , let’s take a step back and look some of the broader dynamics going on in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This letter is ultimately a letter about our freedom in Christ. This is summarized in a verse towards the end of this letter, in verse 1 of Chapter 5, which says

5 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1 ESV

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

So Paul’s objective in writing this letter is that the Galatian church would enjoy the freedom that Christ had given them, but there’s also a warning attached to it. And to be fair this is one of Paul’s most surly and maybe edgy letters. So when we’re looking into Galatians we need to be really careful and thoughtful with Paul’s tone, especially at the beginning of this letter, so that we don’t lose sight of his affection for this church. Paul is fighting and contending for this church so that they don’t lose this spiritual freedom, and that’s the purpose of his letter.

And what’s going on is that Paul planted this church and then he went on his way to continue his ministry and his missionary work and word got back to him that some other Jewish teachers had come into this congregation in Galatia and were teaching that non-Jews, Gentiles, needed to be circumcised and that the Jewish law needed to be practiced in addition to having faith in Christ in order to be justified by God.

And if you’re here and you’re not familiar with the Christian faith, the glory and beauty of the Christian faith is that God is a loving God and that He justified us through Jesus entering into creation and sacrificing Himself on the Cross. Our spiritual freedom comes from having faith in the goodness and work of Christ, not from having to earn it through being a good person or through our own spiritual accomplishments. And this is why the gospel can be especially attractive to people who have made a mess of things because that doesn’t matter. What matters is our faith, not our ability to be a good person.

, says

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet 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.

Galatians 2:15–16 ESV

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet 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.

Now as an aside, as it relates to freedom in Christ, it’s important to mention also, that Paul qualifies this in verse 13 of chapter 5.

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Galatians 5:13 ESV

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

He’s saying you’re free because you believe in Jesus, that’s how that works, but that doesn’t mean that you should therefore just go and indulge in every act of self gratification that comes to mind. It means that Christ has set you free to love. That the purpose of Christ setting you free so that you can be free to love.

So here we are 2000 years later, and the Christian faith continues to be challenged, and we continue to struggle with discerning truth from lies, but the lies that we struggle with are not the same ones that the church in Galatia struggled with. There is no one here in this church that is suggesting that you need to follow the Jewish law and be circumsized in order to be right with God. At least I hope. Right, imagine you walk into church and the greeter hands you a bulletin and smiles, Good morning welcome to the Journey, everyone is welcome here, if you’ve already been circumcized that’s great you can go right in through here, if not, no problem everyone is welcome here, you can go right through this way and someone can take care of that for you. So if that’s not what we’re up against, what are we up against?Feelings and False ExpectationsMoralistic Therapeutic DeismIn 2005, two sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton published research and identified the predominant spiritual beliefs of teenagers which they labeled Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This is how they found that teenagers defined their beliefs.God is a cosmic therapist and divine butler, ready to help out when needed. He exists but really isn’t a part of our lives. We are supposed to be “good people,” but each person must find what’s right for him or her. Good people will go to heaven, and we shouldn’t be stifled by organized religion where somebody tells us what we should do or what we should believe.Brian Cosby, who’s a pastor and visiting seminary lecturer, put it this[Teenagers] see their Christian faith as just one aspect of their lives like anything else—be it sports, friends, school, or family. Its preacher is American entitlement and its sermon is a me-centered message about a distant, therapeutic god who wants teens to be good and happy.I realized that MTD wasn’t just a problem in the culture of American teenagers, but in the culture of the American church. The larger influence of a success-over-faithfulness model of American Christianity is having devastating effects on youth ministry.“God wants teens to be good and happy.” This is what I call the feel good / be good gospel. It’s the gospel of false expectations based upon emotional fulfillment. But if this is talking about teenagers, would this be a message better suited for the youth group? Well, two things. First is that those teenagers are now parents and 2 parents have the biggest influence on their kids. So, I’m super grateful for the youth ministry here, but I also know that as a parent I need to take responsibility in the discipleship of my children.But it’s funny because it doesn’t sound that bad, does it? Is it really a bad thing to believe in being good and happy? It’s not, and if it weren’t for one detail I would be on board. In fact, I used to be on board until this one detail entered into my life. And that detail is that there are historical accounts of many people witnessing the ressurected Jesus, and those people spent the rest of their lives testifying to what they witnessed, and Jesus continues to find a way into peoples lives today.And look, we can believe whatever we want, but what we do want to be clear about is what the gospel is and what it isn’t so that when we hear something like this, we can say, yeah I understand but that’s not the gospel and it’s not what the Christian faith teaches. Let’s be clear right up front, the gospel is the best news, but the good news of the gospel has nothing to do with being good to get to heaven and God wanting us to be happy during this life. So if someone doesn’t believe in the Gospel, ok, but to believe that the Gospel is something that it isn’t, and then to believe in that is to believe in something that ultimately isn’t real, that’s deception, and again this is what Paul is getting in So this moralistic therapeutic deism where God wants me to be good and happy and go to heaven one day, that this is the point of life and the construct of reality, that’s just a gospel of false expectations, and as Paul would say its no gospel at all. God does want us to go to heaven, right to be in His glorious presence for eternity, but this idea of being good and happy isn’t consistent with the teachings of the New Testament, nor is it consistent with the experience of Christian lives. There’s a group that has meeting at our house for much of the past year, not quite a year, and we eat dinner together, and hang out, we study the bible together, and we pray. And when you commit to spending consistent time with others you develop real relationships. And the reality is that in the time that we’ve been doing this, there have been some really difficult things that have happened to some very faithful Christians. Lots of serious challenges, like the brink of death. And I don’t want to speak for everyone there, but my experience is that there is peace and joy in Christ among us, even if God isn’t acting as our divine butler and solving the problems of our lives. And we come together to remind each other of that reality, to support each other in that reality, to ask God for an increase of that reality, and to enjoy that reality for those moments despite what’s going on. And I just want to say before we move on that if that’s something that you want to participate in, our door is open, all you have to do is approach me or my wife and say hey i’d like to check out your home meeting and we’ll give you our address and tell you when to show up. Life is not always hard and challenging, there are good times and fun and all of that too, but if we go into our Christian lives expecting that God’s purpose is to make us happy and get us out hard times. We’re going to question our faith when it doesn’t happen even though God never said that that was his purpose to begin with. What did God say? But it’s not just our Christian experience of trials, it’s also what is explictly taught in the Word of God, in the Bible. Let’s just real quick survey a few verses about Do you remember what verse Dan the wrestler preached on? John 16:33 33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”Or how about this one?James 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.Or this one from Paul10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. but maybe someone will say, well, that’s just Paul he was called out by God to live a special and unique Christian life.15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained. 17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.What about Peter?3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.Ok, that’s almost every author of the New Testament, and there’s more. And this is not saying that the purpose of life is to suffer, but it is saying that as Christians we have no need to shy away from trials and that God’s purpose in my life is to take care of all of lifes problems. I know and believe that God does sometimes heal people. I know someone personally who, as a mom of two young girls, was healed in an instant from terminal Crones. One moment she was dying and next she was healed, and she knew it. But if you’re a Christian for that purpose, I want to challenge you that you’re missing the point. Though I believe in healing I can’t makes sense of it, I can’t organize into some predictable system. But what I can oranize is the understanding that God canLet’s go back to our verse, Galatians 2:20.I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me. This is the true gospel, that has the true power to save. And before we leave, I just want to turn this verse into a few bullet points, and I want to encourage you to grab hold of those bullet points and use them as some of the primary steel girders that support your faith and your life.God loves us and he demonstrated his love for us through diring for us. What more can you do. If you think that God doesn’t love you, I believe that you are wrong.That being said, God also clearly calls us to turn away from our old way of life, and in fact to die to our old way of life. But if we’re going to be totally faithful to scripture, it’s even more than that. That somehow, in our unseend spiritual reality when we believed in Jesus, we believed into Jesus and became a part of Him and we are now unified with Him according to some cosmic reality that transcends time. We were crucified with Him when he as crucified though only He experienced the actual suffering of that crucifiction, and so we died. But because we are united with him we also were resurrected with Him. But when we came back to life, we ddidn’t come back as a different person. We came back as a different type of person, a different category of human. Christ now lives in us.As a result of all of this, I no longer live according to how I feel, I now live by faith. Whether or not I feel any of this has no bearing upon whether or not it is real. My feelings can follow along behind my faith, but my feelings do not lead my faith. The life we live now, we live by faith.

So here we are 2000 years later, and I hope that there is no one here in this church that is suggesting that you need to follow the Jewish law and be circumsized in order to be right with God. If you pull out the blue connection card in front of you, there should be no “I want to be circumcized” box to check on the connection card. Right, imagine you walk into church and the greeter hands you a bulletin and smiles, and they say Good morning welcome to church, if you’ve already been circumcized that’s great you can go right in through here, if not, that’s ok you can go right through this way and someone can take care of that for you. That doesn’t happen, but what are we up against?and if Paul were to write a letter warning us, not necesarrily the Journey, but the American church, of what could lead us to lose sight of our freedom in Christ and unknowingly fall into some type of spiritual bondage, what exactly would it be. And I think two things that we could be warned about is feelings and false expectations.

So how did this happen? We know that someone began teaching the Jewish law, but how exactly did this happen. Verse 1 of chapter 3 says

Alright, first things first before we actually dig into this verse, let’s pan out and identify some of the broader dynamics going on in Paul’s letter to the Galatians and this will help us when we get into the specifics of this verse.Paul’s letter to the Galatians, is a letter about freedom, specifically about our freedom in Christ. This is summed in a famous verse towards the end of this letter, in verse 1 of Chapter 5, which say 5 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. You could argue that this is Paul’s objective in writing this letter. That the Galatian church would enjoy the freedom that Christ has given us, but it’s also warning, conversely, that we wouldn’t enter back into slavery. Enjoy your freedom that Christ has provided you, but do not enter back into slavery. This is a positive theme, there’s a positive sense about this.But, if we look at the very beginning of this letter, the tone of the letter is quite different. In fact, In its opening, it seems like a contentious letter where Paul is expressing his most surly self. He is clearly no not happy with the church in Galatia. In all of Paul’s other letters he begins by telling them how he loves and prays for them, but in the beginning of this letter he launches into an attack on their practice of the faith and accuses them of turning away from the gospel. In verse 6 of chapter 1 he writes,6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.So Paul comes out of the bell throwing uppercuts and using really strong language. He goes on from here to remind them that he has been accepted by the apostles in Jerusalem and so has apostolic authority, and after that he writes about the famous public argument he had with the apostle Peter. And what’s going on is that Paul planted this church and then he went on his way to continue his ministry and his missionary work and word got back to him that some other teachers had come into this congregation and were teaching something other than what he had taught them about Christ and the gospel, that they needed to practice the Jewish law, including circumcision, in addition to having faith in Christ in order to be justified by God, to be declared righteous. And so he’s saying, there is only one gospel truth and its the one I preached to you, your righteousness is through faith in Christ alone, not through being circumcized, not through performing good works, and it doesn’t matter who teaches you something different, don’t believe it. Right even if an angel comes and teaches something different than what I taught, don’t believe it.But even though Paul has this edgy tone in his letter, he also maintains a clear concern and affection for them as well. He is fighting for them. He is contending for them, contending for their souls, against false teaching which is resulting in their spiritual slavery. Remember that the main themes of this letter is our freedom in Christ, and Paul says that they lost their freedom and they he goes on to talk about exactly how this happened. So, in verse 1 of chapter 3 Paul writes,3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.If you type “bewitch” it says “to cast a spell over” or “to enchant and delight.” Insert Bewitched image. The Greek word used here is “baskainō” and its defined as “to practice black magic on” or the word could also be translated as delude (inferring a use of magic). Now we might read right over this word as we’re reading Galatians and minimize it and not give it second thought, but Paul chose this word for reason, he’s stating that someone has cast a spell over them. That someone has spoken something to the church there, and its begun to define their view of reality and the nature of their relationship with God in such a way that they had been led back into spiritual bondage. And the greatest irony of this is that their bondage was in fact their belief that they had to work their way out of their bondage, even though in reality they would never be able to do so, and more importantly that Christ has already won their freedom for them. Imagine this, your mind becomes imprisoned within idea that you need to work your out of the prison even thought there is an open door right in front of you.Paul is saying that someone has cast a spell on them, and following this, throughout the rest of the letter he gets to work undoing that spell introduction he gets to work undoing that spell.Now, let’s pan out even farther, and look at this idea of bewitching not just within Galatians, but as a theme that runs through the entire narrative of the Bible. Because in the Bible we see that just like in this church in Galatia that human beings struggle to discern truth from lies. We can be enchanted or delighted to believe in something that seems good and appears good but leads directly to our spiritual slavery. [INSERT MEDIA of lion witch and wardrobe]When we read the Bible we are reminded that ultimately the backdrop of reality is a spiritual one, we may not always be able to see it or perceive, but that’s the statement that’s being made. The ultimate backdrop of life is not biological, psychological, intellectual, financial, emotional, sexual, chemical, or physical - it’s spiritual. All of these things are a part of God’s creation, but ultimately, God is spirit, and so the ultimate bedrock of reality is spiritual. In the beginning of the Bible, in the very first chapters of Genesis, we see the spiritual reality of God transposed over God’s creation, and it was paradise. But then we see that Paradise distorted by the influence of the serpent, who speaks something which enters into the minds of Adam and Eve, and they are enchanted and delighted and then willingly enter into spiritual bondage. The point of the early chapters of Genesis is to give us a window into the the spiritual reality of Creation and what happened as a result of Satan influencing that reality through Adam and Eve. That paradise becomes something very different, and the very idea of who we are and what reality is and what life is became twisted and distorted. And again, we’re looking into a spiritual reality that we can’t necessarily perceive into, it’s behind the scenes. But if we don’t start there, with God’s creation of Paradise, and then the subsequent distortion of paradise through the bewitching of the Serpent, the rest of the Bible is going to struggle to make sense to us. The beginning of the Bible shows how Satan influenced humanity, and then it tells a story of how God addressed the work of Satan. The beginning says this is how this started through this deception, and then if we turn all the way towards the end of the Bible, and it tells us clearly this is how this ended. And I’m not talking about Revelation, I’m talking about 1 John 3:… The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Notice the use of the word “appear” Jesus wasn’t created through birth like you and I were, Jesus exists eternally, and He chose to appear. Jesus is the incarnation of God who “appeared” within creation to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus is God, in the form of a man, and He is ultimately taking care of all of this. None of us are taking on Satan by ourselves. Without Jesus, we are guppies in a fishbowl to him. But in order for this to make sense we have to accept that the our ultimate reality is an unseen spiritual one, and that there is a powerful malevolent entity within that spiritual reality who is intent on debasing us as human beings through lies about who and what we are. And the result is broken marriages, and broken families and addiction, and sexual impurity, and financial greed, and emotional insecurity and depression and frustration and anger ultimately leading us to believe that there is no purpose to life and therefore there must be no God.But the message of Jesus is clear. He calls us to open our eyes to truth and to look at the way we have lived, to repent of that way of life, to turn towards God through declaring that Jesus is, in fact, God and Lord of all, including me, and that he died on the cross for the forgiveness of how we have lived and as a result of His work on the Cross we are now declared righteous in the sight of God. In Christ, we are free from guilt and shame. And this letter to the Galatians is about deception and the binding that comes through deception, but more importantly it’s the truth and the freedom comes through the truth.So when we pan all the way out the story of the Bible is very simple, God created Paradise, Satan distorted paradise, Jesus came to undo that distortion. So the mission of Jesus was to undo the works of the devil, and the mission of Paul in this letter is to undo the works of whoever was spreading this false teaching, specifically that people had to be circumzied and follow the law to be deemed righteouse in the eyes of God, that our spiritual salvation was the result of checking off boxes of particular behaviors, our good works.

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

Galatians 3:1 ESV

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

When we look at the modern definition of “bewitch” it says “to cast a spell over” or “to enchant and delight.” Insert Bewitched image. The Greek word that Paul used here is “baskainō” and its defined as “to practice black magic on” or the word could also be translated as “to use magic to delude.” Now we might read right over this word as we’re reading Galatians and not give it second thought, but Paul chose this word for reason, he’s stating that someone has cast a spell over them. He’s not suggesting that someone is practicing some type magical incantation … but that a group of people have influenced the church in such a way that has caused them to lose sight of Christ.

This type of dynamic, where people are influenced to lose the good things that God has given us is not specific to Galatians. This is a theme that runs through the entire narrative of the Bible. From , Adam and Eve are enchanted and delighted by the idea that they can be like God and then willingly, though unknowingly, enter into spiritual bondage through the bewitching of the Serpent. And then the rest of the story of the Bible is about Jesus coming to undo the work of this spiritual darkness. The last segment of says

… The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

1 John 3:8 ESV

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Turkish Delight[INSERT MEDIA of lion witch and wardrobe] Does anyone know what Turkish Delight is? Turkish delight is the dessert that the witch in the lion witch and warddrobe uses to enslave Edmund who was one of the four children in that movie. And ultimately the hero of that movie, Aslan, who represents Christ, sacrifices his life in order to secure Edmund’s freedom.

So when we step all the way back to see the whole story of the Bible, that story is very simple, God created Paradise and humanity within it, Satan distorted paradise along with humanity, Jesus came to undo that distortion and to restore humanity to a redeemed state. And this letter to the Galatians is no different, people were free in Christ, they were then being deceived and led back into spiritual slavery by believing they had to follow the Jewish law, and so Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit writes to them to free them of that deception and remind them of the ultimate truth which is in Christ.

If we look at Galatians 2:20, and we whittle away everything that can be whittled away and try to get to the most base statement that Paul is making in this verse, we get this. I live by faith in in the Son of God.I live by faith in the Son of God. Yes as Christians we all have faith in the Son of God, but that not what Paul is talking about here. Do we live by faith in the Son of God? And if we don’t what do we live by, which is to say what are we fueled by?We live in this world of self help pragmatism while we seek this constant emotional fulfillment, and it can shape our view of God. We’re taught to think this way by our culture. Our thinking becomes enslaved to that. Because we’re looking for that we automatically assume that God is likewise seeking to provide that. And it’s tricky because we can “have faith in Jesus” but at the same time live by our feelings and not by our faith. And that’s why its so important Moralistic Therapeutic DeismIn 2005, two sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton published this famous research about the spiritual beliefs in the US. And they came up with this long name for what they found called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. And this is how they defined it.God is a cosmic therapist and divine butler, ready to help out when needed. He exists but really isn’t a part of our lives. We are supposed to be “good people,” but each person must find what’s right for him or her. Good people will go to heaven, and we shouldn’t be stifled by organized religion where somebody tells us what we should do or what we should believe.It kind of sounds like God is a really emotionally sensitive Avenger who’s going to be there when I need Him but is going to give me space when I want space. Moralistic suggests that we want to be good people. Therapeutic suggests that we want be emotionally fulfilled. And Deism means that we believe in God. And on the surface of it, there is really nothing terrible about this. But this is saying something very different than what Paul wrote in Galatians. Paul is saying that being a good person doesn’t result in going to heaven, faith in Christ does. James 2:19 says that believing in God in and of itself is not that significant because even demons believe in God. And Paul says that what fuels his life isn’t emotion, its faith. And so if there’s one thing that risks taking us captive its this desire for emotional fulfillment. And its not that God doesn’t take care of our emotional life, its that He takes care of it through strengthening our faith, and its strengthening our faith that produces the fruit of the Holy Spirit which includes a lot of the positive emotions we want but also the ability to deal with negative experience as well. It’s as if God is saying, you’ll get this fruit, but don’t seek after it. I see this same type of dynamic in my work a lot. I’ve worked as a therapist for almost twenty years, and one of the most difficult challenges that I have in my work is to convince them to not want to change how they feel. Because they hear that and they’re thinking well I came to you because I feel depressed or because i’m struggling with anger or frustration or anxiety and I don’t want to feel that way. That’s why I’m here. And I understand that and I don’t want people to feel that way either anymore than I want to feel that way, but that’s not how it works. And what I mean is that wanting to feel different than we feel when we’re not feeling good just makes us feel worse. And so people come and say I would like to feel better, and I respond that I’m not going to try and help you feel better. And they’re like what? And then I tell them that it’s more important that they learn how to make healthy and functional decisions in their life regardless of how they feel and especially when they don’t feel like making healthy and functional decisions. Why because making good decisions helps us feel better. I’m not focused on people’s emotions because people’s emotions, generally speaking, just follow along with their decisions.Here’s an example of what I mean. A dude came in to my office and said I am super depressed and I need to find a way to be more motivated. And so I said I don’t know how to help feel more motivated, but let’s work on learning how to do things that you need to do in your life when you don’t feel like doing them. To start, tell me one thing in your life that you need to do that you don’t feel like doing, and that you’ve been putting off. I have a pile of dishes. Ok, here’s your objective for the next week, do your dishes when you don’t feel motivated to do them. That’s all we’re working on, we’re not working on trying to feel differently. And he says, ok I get it and buying it, I’m going to give it a shotSo, here’s what happened, he comes back and I asked him if he did the dishes. And he said yes, and I asked him how he felt about having done the dishes, he said he felt better and had more motivation. It’s not complicated, we all know that it feels good to be finished with the dishes. But here’s the trick, he didn’t feel better and have more motivation because he was trying to feel better and have more motivation. He felt better because he did what he needed to do when he didn’t feel like doing it. But he also felt better because I convinced him to believe that trying to feel differently doesn’t work but that learning how to do things when you don’t feel like doing them does work if you want to feel differently. Abandon that type of thinking. Learn how to do something when you don’t feel like doing it.God does want us to go to heaven, right to be in His glorious presence for eternity, The gospel promises to make you right with God for eternity through faith in the sacrificial work of Jesus. And if our response is “that’s great but what i really need is a raise” well it doesn’t really promise to do that, or I just need help getting my kids to brush their teeth at night without it turning into a complete family meltdown. What does it say? The life I now live I live by faith in Jesus Christ. And my question as far as teeth brushing goes like this - What ends up happening to the tooth brushing if I totally commit to live by faith in Christ instead of living in hope that my kid will brush his teeth. Maybe I’m missing something but in one of those scenarios Christ is my savior but in the other scenario my kids ability to brush their teeth is my savior. Life is not always hard and challenging, there are good times and fun that we celebrate and share great seasons of our live and all of that too, but if we go into our Christian lives expecting that God’s purpose is to make us happy and get us out hard times. We’re going to question our faith when it doesn’t happen even though God never said that that was his purpose to begin with. What did God say as it relates to this idea of God wants me to be happy? But it’s not just our Christian experience of trials, it’s also what is explicitly taught in the Word of God, in the Bible. Let’s just real quick survey a few verses about Do you remember what verse Dan the wrestler preached on? John 16:33 33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”Or how about this one?James 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.Or this one from Paul10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. but maybe someone will say, well, that’s just Paul he was called out by God to live a special and unique Christian life.15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained. 17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.What about Peter?3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.Ok, that’s almost every author of the New Testament, and there’s more. And this is not saying that the purpose of life is to suffer, its just saying that if we expect that God’s purpose in my life is to take care of our problems to be our cosmic therapist and to make us feel good and that doesn’t happen, we run the risk of beginning to question God. I know and believe that God enters into this world in a supernatural way at tiems and does sometimes heal people. I know someone personally who, as a mom of two young girls, was healed in an instant from terminal Crones. One moment she was dying and making peace with having to say goodbye to her girls, and as she was doing that she felt God asking her to call the next random church for prayer one more time. She did and when she hung up the phone she realized that she had been healed completely. But even though that’s a part of the reality of Christian life, if we’re a Christian for that purpose, I think we need to consider if we’re missing the point. Let’s go back to our verse, Galatians 2:20.I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me. The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me. This is the true gospel, that has the true power to save. And before we leave, I just want to turn this verse into three concise bullet points, and I want to encourage you to grab hold of those bullet points and use them as some of the primary steel girders so that they can support your faith and your life.God loves us and he demonstrated his love for us through diring for us. What more can you do. If you think that God doesn’t love you, I believe that you are wrong.That being said, God also clearly calls us to turn away from our old way of life, and in fact to die to our old way of life. But if we’re going to be totally faithful to this piece of scripture, it’s even more than that. That somehow, in our unseend spiritual reality when we believed in Jesus, we believed into Jesus and became a part of Him and we are now unified with Him. Because we’re now in union with Him we were somehow crucified with Him when he as crucified even though only He experienced the actual suffering of that crucifiction, and so we died. But because we are united with him we have also been resurrected with Him. But when we came back to life, we ddidn’t come back as a different person. We came back as a different type of person, a different category of human. Christ now lives in us. And if you’re thinking, “well i don’t feel Christ living in me” that brings us to our last bullet point.As a result of all of this, we no longer live according to how we feel, we now live by faith. Whether or not we feel any of this has no bearing upon whether or not it is real. Our feelings can follow along behind our faith, if they want to, but our feelings do not lead our faith. The life we live now, we live by faith.

So here we are 2000 years later, and I hope that there is no one here in this church that is suggesting that you need to follow the Jewish law and be circumcised in order to be right with God. If you pull out the blue connection card in front of you, there should be no box that you can check that says “I want to be circumcised.” Right, imagine you walk into church and the greeter hands you a bulletin and smiles, and they say Good morning welcome to church, if you’ve already been circumcised that’s great you can go right through this door, if not, that’s ok too everyone’s welcome here, but you can go right through this way and someone can take care of that for you. That doesn’t happen, but what are we up against?

So here we are 2000 years later, and the Christian faith continues to be challenged, and we continue to struggle with discerning truth from lies, but the lies that we struggle with are not the same ones that the church in Galatia struggled with. There is no one here in this church that is suggesting that you need to follow the Jewish law and be circumsized in order to be right with God. At least I hope. Right, imagine you walk into church and the greeter hands you a bulletin and smiles, Good morning welcome to the Journey, everyone is welcome here, if you’ve already been circumcized that’s great you can go right in through here, if not, no problem everyone is welcome here, you can go right through this way and someone can take care of that for you. So if that’s not what we’re up against, what are we up against?Feelings and False ExpectationsMoralistic Therapeutic DeismIn 2005, two sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton published research and identified the predominant spiritual beliefs of teenagers which they labeled Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This is how they found that teenagers defined their beliefs.God is a cosmic therapist and divine butler, ready to help out when needed. He exists but really isn’t a part of our lives. We are supposed to be “good people,” but each person must find what’s right for him or her. Good people will go to heaven, and we shouldn’t be stifled by organized religion where somebody tells us what we should do or what we should believe.Brian Cosby, who’s a pastor and visiting seminary lecturer, put it this[Teenagers] see their Christian faith as just one aspect of their lives like anything else—be it sports, friends, school, or family. Its preacher is American entitlement and its sermon is a me-centered message about a distant, therapeutic god who wants teens to be good and happy.“God wants teens to be good and happy.” This is what I call the feel good / be good gospel. It’s the gospel of false expectations based upon emotional fulfillment. But if this is talking about teenagers, would this be a message better suited for the youth group? Well, two things. First is that those teenagers are now parents and 2 parents have the biggest influence on their kids. So, I’m super grateful for the youth ministry here, but I also know that as a parent I need to take responsibility in the discipleship of my children.But it’s funny because it doesn’t sound that bad, does it? Is it really a bad thing to believe in being good and happy? It’s not, and if it weren’t for one detail I would be on board. In fact, I used to be on board until this one detail entered into my life. And that detail is that there are historical accounts of many people witnessing the ressurected Jesus, and those people spent the rest of their lives testifying to what they witnessed, and Jesus continues to find a way into peoples lives today.And look, we can believe whatever we want, but what we do want to be clear about is what the gospel is and what it isn’t so that when we hear something like this, we can say, yeah I understand but that’s not the gospel and it’s not what the Christian faith teaches. Let’s be clear right up front, the gospel is the best news, but the good news of the gospel has nothing to do with being good to get to heaven and God wanting us to be happy during this life. So if someone doesn’t believe in the Gospel, ok, but to believe that the Gospel is something that it isn’t, and then to believe in that is to believe in something that ultimately isn’t real, that’s deception, and again this is what Paul is getting in So this moralistic therapeutic deism where God wants me to be good and happy and go to heaven one day, that this is the point of life and the construct of reality, that’s just a gospel of false expectations, and as Paul would say its no gospel at all. God does want us to go to heaven, right to be in His glorious presence for eternity, but this idea of being good and happy isn’t consistent with the teachings of the New Testament, nor is it consistent with the experience of Christian lives. There’s a group that has meeting at our house for much of the past year, not quite a year, and we eat dinner together, and hang out, we study the bible together, and we pray. And when you commit to spending consistent time with others you develop real relationships. And the reality is that in the time that we’ve been doing this, there have been some really difficult things that have happened to some very faithful Christians. Lots of serious challenges, like the brink of death. And I don’t want to speak for everyone there, but my experience is that there is peace and joy in Christ, even if there is not happiness in life.

But if Paul were to write a letter of warning us, and I don’t mean the Journey, but the American church, about what could lead us to lose sight of our freedom in Christ and unknowingly fall into some type of spiritual bondage, what exactly would it be. And I think two things that we could be warned about is our cultural predisposition on focusing on our feelings and having false expectations about God.

If we look at , and we whittle away everything that can be whittled away and try to get to the most base statement that Paul is making in this verse, we get this. I live by faith in in the Son of God.

I live by faith in the Son of God. Yes as Christians we all have faith in the Son of God, we possess faith in the Son of God, but that not what Paul is talking about here. He’s talking about living by faith in the Son of God? By being fueled by faith in the Son of God. And if we don’t what do we live by, which is to say what are we fueled by? And in our culture, we’re taught to be fueled by feelings.

We live in this world of self help pragmatism while we seek this constant emotional fulfillment, and it can shape our view of God. Because if everything else in our culture is designed to provide us with emotional fulfillment, then God must just a perfect version of that.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

In 2005, two sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton published research about the spiritual beliefs in the US, and they came up with a name for what they found called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. And this is how they defined it.

God is a cosmic therapist and divine butler, ready to help out when needed. He exists but really isn’t a part of our lives. We are supposed to be “good people,” but each person must find what’s right for him or her. Good people will go to heaven, and we shouldn’t be stifled by organized religion where somebody tells us what we should do or what we should believe.

On the surface of it, it doesn’t sound all that terrible. God is like the ultimate therapist, who is going to make us feel better and help us solve our problems. Not too bad. But this is saying something very different than what is revealed about God in the Bible. To begin with, the Bible doesn’t say that being a good person, however that is defined, doesn’t result in going to heaven, faith in Christ does. says that believing in God in and of itself is not that significant because even demons believe in God. And then in Paul says that what fuels his life isn’t emotion, its faith. And its not that God doesn’t provide emotional fulfillment, its that He provides it through our faith, and its our faith that leads to the fruit of the Holy Spirit which includes a lot of the positive emotions we want to feel, but the fruit of the Spirit also includes the ability to deal with negative experience as well.

I see this same type of dynamic in my work. I’ve worked as a therapist for almost twenty years, and one of the most difficult challenges that I have is to convince people not want to seek after changing how they feel. But when people hear that, they’re likely thinking well I came to you because I feel depressed or because i’m struggling with anger or frustration or anxiety and I don’t want to feel that way. That’s why I’m here. And I understand that and I don’t want people to feel that way either anymore than I want to feel that way, but that’s not how it works. People don’t change how they feel by seeking to change how they feel. And they’re like what? And then I tell them that it’s more important that they learn how to make healthy and functional decisions in their life regardless of how they feel and especially when they don’t feel like making healthy and functional decisions. And that is what is going to help them feel better. I’m not focused on people’s emotions because people’s emotions, generally, just follow along with their decisions.

Here’s an example of what I mean. A dude came in to my office and said I am super depressed and I need to find a way to be more motivated. And so I said I don’t know how to help feel more motivated, but let’s work on learning how to do things that you need to do in your life when you don’t feel like doing them. To start, tell me one thing in your life that you need to do that you don’t feel like doing, and that you’ve been putting off. I have a pile of dishes. Ok, here’s your objective for the next week, do your dishes when you don’t feel motivated to do them. That’s all we’re working on, we’re not working on trying to feel differently. And he says, ok I get it and buying it, I’m going to give it a shot.

So, here’s what happened, he comes back and I asked him if he did the dishes. And he said yes, and I asked him how he felt about having done the dishes, he said he felt better and had more motivation. It’s not complicated, we all know that it feels good to be finished with the dishes. But here’s the trick, he didn’t feel better and have more motivation because he was trying to feel better and have more motivation. He felt better because he did what he needed to do when he didn’t feel like doing it. But he also felt better because I convinced him to have faith in the fact that he would feel better if he did acted in a way that wasn’t determined by his feelings. So, in Galatians 2:20, Paul isn’t living by how feels about the Son of God, he is living by faith in the Son of God, and living by faith in the Son of God produces the emotional experience that we’re hoping for, but it doesn’t work the other way around.

So if our living by our feelings and not living by faith is one message that can ensnare us, another one is false expectations. This is God as a divine Butler. Somehow we get this message that everything is just supposed to work out, and if it doesn’t then God should help me with that. But in my life as a Christian, I’ve had challenging and trying times, and I’ve also known many faithful devoted Christians who do live by faith in Jesus who have trying times as well. But again, the message that we’re not supposed to experience hardship or trials in our lives doesn’t come from the Bible, it comes from somewhere else. The Bible explicitly says that if you’re going through trials in your life, that doesn’t mean that something is wrong. Let’s do a quick survey a few verses about realistic expectations as we live our Christian life.

Do you remember what verse Dan the wrestler who has preached here a couple of times? And one of the times he spoke he spoke on

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33 ESV

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

And there is -3James 1:

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

James 1:2–3 ESV

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

,

Or this one from Paul10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

Philippians 3:10 ESV

that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

but maybe someone will say, well, that’s just Paul he was called out by God to live a special and unique Christian life.

17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

Philippians 3:17 ESV

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

What about ?

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,

1 Peter 1:6 ESV

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,

Ok, that’s almost every author of the New Testament, saying that we can expect to have difficult times. And this is not saying that the purpose of life is to suffer, not at all, we can also expect love peace and joy, and that we’ll go through seasons of life that are really bountiful and fun and exciting. Life is not always hard and challenging, there are good times that we celebrate, but if we go into our Christian lives expecting that God’s purpose is to make get us out hard times, then we’re vulnerable to questioning our faith if it doesn’t happen even though God has always been clear in the Bible about our expectations for Christian life.

I know and believe that God enters into this world in a supernatural way at times, and heals people. I worked with someone several years ago, who as a mom of two young girls, was healed in an instant from terminal complications with Crones Disease. One moment she was dying and making peace with having to say goodbye to her little girls, and as she was doing that she felt God asking her to call one more random church for prayer one more time. She did and when she hung up the phone she realized that she had been healed completely. Right so that’s part of the deal to.

Alright - Let’s go back to, , and we’ll wrap up.

Galatians 2:20 ESV

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.

The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me. This is the true gospel, that has the true power to save. And before we leave, I just want to turn this verse into three concise bullet points, and I want to encourage you to grab hold of those bullet points and use them as some of the primary steel girders so that they can support your faith and your life.

God loves us and he demonstrated his love for us through the cross. If you think that God doesn’t love you, I think that you are wrong.

That being said, God also clearly calls us to turn away from our old way of life, and in fact to die to our old way of life. But if we’re going to be totally faithful to this piece of scripture, it’s even more than that. That somehow when we believed in Jesus, we believed into Jesus and became a part of Him. Because we’re now in union with Him we were somehow crucified with Him when he as crucified even though only He experienced the actual suffering of that Crucifixion. But because we are united with him we have also been resurrected with Him. But when we came back to life, we didn't come back as a better person. We came back as a different person and a different type of person. Christ now lives in us. And if you’re thinking, “well i don’t feel Christ living in me” that brings us to our last bullet point.

As a result of all of this, we no longer live according to how we feel, we now live by faith. Whether or not we feel any of this has no bearing upon whether or not it is real. Our feelings can follow along behind our faith, if they want to, but our feelings do not lead our faith. The life we live now, we live by faith.

Final 8.16 for slides

8.18.19 final.1

Introduction

Galatians Background

Section 2

Galatians Background

Galatians Background

8.16.19 Final

If Not by Faith, then What?

If Not by Faith, then What?

Bewitched

Galatians Background

Feelings and False Expectations

If Not by Faith, By What?

If Not by Faith, then What?

Feelings and False Expectations

False Expectations