Proof by Experinece.

Opening Comments:

Please meet me in your copy of God’s Word in Galatians 3:1-5. Today, we will begin a new section in the book of Galatians. A normal flow for Pauline Epistles is personal (1-2) , doctrinal (3-4), practical (5-6). Today we will begin the doctrinal portion of the book.

The major thrust of Galatians is the fact that justification is by faith alone and not by the keeping of rules or good works. No one will deny that christians ought to be good people who do good things. Christians should be moral. But the point of Galatians and frankly all of scripture is that being moral does not justify you before God. Moral people are still sinners and sinners are condemned on their own. No matter how good we are, we can never be good enough. We still sin, we still fall short, we are still not perfectly righteous. Only God can declare us as such and he does that through faith in Christ.

But, how do we know that God will give us justification through Christ? How do we know that through Christ we will be accepted and live eternally in heaven?

Paul, answers these two questions in chapter 3-4. There are six proofs that God will justify us by faith in Christ alone and not by the keeping of the law or doing good works.

Today, in our text before us, we will see that first proof unfolded and it is:

“The proof of the believers experience.”

Galatians 3:1–5 NKJV

1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? 4 Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Introduction:

Shortly after Paul’s departure from the region of Galatia some very influential people had made there way into the churches that he had planted. The churches sort of took pride in the fact that these seemingly very scripturally knowledgeable people were there. The churches were so glad to have them that they were immediately placed into positions of leadership and teaching. However, these new people were peddling at best a misunderstanding of the Gospel and at worst were actually unsaved. They began to teach that faith in Christ alone wasn't enough to save a person, that a person had to undergo the basic ritual of religion (circumcision) and focus their life on the keeping of the mosaic and traditional law in order for them to become acceptable to God.

As Paul transition from giving his personal experience and into a more teaching mode, he will very directly disprove this false teaching. In the passage before us he begins his teaching by asking a series of questions that probes at the personal experience of the Galatian people when they first believed in Christ. You see, the believers experience proves that a person is justified by faith alone, and all that a believer has to do is to think through his experience and he will see the truth.

IN these 5 verses, Paul asks a series of 5 questions designed to help the Galatians think through their salvation and through those 5 questions we well see five evidences that a believer is justified by faith alone in Christ.

1. A believer corrects error. (v.1)

A.) They were being foolish

Notice, Paul calls the Galatians believers “Foolish Galatians.”

Foolish- misunderstanding, thoughtless and unthinking.

The Galatians were listening to false teaching and passively drinking it in. They were not thinking through and searching out what was being taught. They were lazily just accepting this error as truth and not engaging to see if what was being taught was actually true. They were acting like senseless people who were incapable of thinking.

B.) They were bewitched.

Bewitched- fascinate, cast a spell upon, mislead, deceive.

These false teachers were vey convincing, as most are. Especially to people who were not thinking and comparing their teachings to what they had learned of Christ.

Their teaching sounded very reasonable and logical:

A person must keep religious ritual.

A person must do good works to be holy.

A person must keep the law to be acceptable to God.

This error was bewitching or deceiving believers.

C.) They were being disobedient.

The Galatians were simply not obeying the truth they had been giving. They were trying to make themselves acceptable to God on their own instead of focusing on Christ.

D.) They were turning away from Christ.

The Galatians had clearly seen the crucifixion of Christ through the preaching of Paul. He had plainly shown them the death, burial and resurrection of Christ so clearly in fact it was as if they had seen Christ crucified themselves.

There was no excuse for them following false teachers. They knew the gospel and understood the gospel.

If you were to spend some time in the shop of a potter, you would be fascinated to watch the potter at work. Working with a lump of unimpressive clay, the potter beings to form a shape on his wheel. When it appears that he is almost finished, he suddenly smashes his work back into a lump of clay again. “What a waste of time,” you think to yourself. It looked pretty good from your perspective.

But, to the trained eye of the potter, an error was easily detected. Because he took pride in what he did, he was not willing to overlook the flaw. His product was going to be a cut above the rest—because of his commitment to quality.

Leadership Ministries Worldwide. (2010). Galatians (p. 59). Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.

Application: Much like that potter, we as believers in Christ, must have that same level of commitment to the truth. We must be ready to correct any theological errors that may arise in our midst the moment they pop their heads up. We must be committed to doctrinal purity. We must be willing to look for, recognize and then get rid of false teachings. In order to keep our church on the right track and to be a real witness for Christ. We cannot abdicate our responsibility as believers to correct doctrinal error.

2.) A believer receives the Spirit by faith, not by observance of the law. (v.2)

In a sense he is asking them: How did you begin your Christian life? Did you receive the Holy Spirit through works of the law or by hearing of faith?

When we trust Christ as savior, the Holy Spirit of God takes up residence inside of us as a guarantee of our salvation. No person earns the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit on their own merits.

No matter how much good we do or how much law we keep we cannot merit salvation. The genuine believer in Christ understands this. The galatians knew this because they had been taught properly by Paul.

They became christians by hearing the gospel, believing the gospel and receiving the Holy Spirit.

They knew they were not righteous and needed to be justified and had been justified by faith in Christ.

They knew they had been saved by grace through faith and that they would grow in Christ the same way.

Paul is calling them to think through the way in which they got saved and to see if it lined up with what they were now being taught.

Application: As believers we need to regularly reflect upon the day we trusted Christ and the gospel message we believed. In order that we are not led astray as the Galatian believers were.

3.) A believer grows by faith. (v.3)

The error in Galatia is still an error that is propagated today. That believers grow to maturity in Christ through their own efforts, works, goodness, discipline, morality and behavior.

That belief is antithetical to the message of the gospel of grace through faith.

Your flesh is sinful and no matter how strong and disciplined you are. No matter how many good deeds you do or religious laws you keep, your flesh can never make you grow spiritually.

Focusing upon the works of the flesh and our own strength only serves to emphasize self, not the Spirit of God working in us.

There is no amount of works or law keeping that can make us acceptable to God and form us into the image of Christ.

The only way for a believer to grow and mature spiritually is to focus our life and mind on Christ moment by moment. We do this as the Holy Sprit of God working in us draws our minds to the things of God. That is the Spirits job. He works within us to help us grow and mature in Christ.

Romans 8:29 NKJV

29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Philippians 3:20–21 NKJV

20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

4.) A believer suffers because of his faith. (v.4)

When the Galatians believers became christians they had suffered greatly for Christ (Acts 14) and that persecution lasted for an extended period of time.

By asking this question Paul is essentially telling them that if they were turning to a false teaching and away from Christ then that suffering they had endured was in vain. They would have suffered for nothing. In fact, they would have appeared foolish if they turned away from Christ after they had suffered so much to embrace him.

Application: Every believer who truly turns to Christ will endure some sort of suffering. It may be mild, but some suffering will be carried. Separating from the world, denying self, dying to our own will every day, giving all we have to Christ is not easy.

If Christ is worth suffering for, why then forsake Him and turn to false doctrine?

Matthew 5:11 NKJV

11 “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.

Where is it written in the pages of scripture that a Christian believer is exempt from suffering?

Unfortunately, many have bought into a false doctrine that says “bad things don’t happen to good people.”

We need to rest in God’s ability to provide everything that we need in order to become more like Jesus.

A man found a cocoon of the emperor moth and took it home to watch it emerge. One day a small opening appeared, and for several hours the moth struggled but couldn’t seem to force its body past a certain point.

Deciding something was wrong, the man took scissors and snipped the remaining bit of cocoon. The moth emerged easily, its body large and swollen, the wings small and shriveled.

He expected that in a few hours the wings would spread out in their natural beauty, but they did not. Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the moth spent its life dragging around a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are God’s way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings. The ‘merciful’ snip was, in reality, cruel. Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need.

Craig B. Larson, Editor. Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching, p.266.

5.) A believer experiences God’s miraculous work by faith, not observance of the law. (v.5)

What were the miracles Paul was speaking of here? According to Acts 14:8-15 they were many healed in the towns of Galatia.

But these miracles were not due to the efforts of the Galatian believers, they were do to the power of God. They didn't earn or merit God preforming miracles. No, they heard of faith, and they believed God and God did miracles among them because of their faith in Christ. God honored their faith and met their needs.

Application: What a powerful lesson for us to learn today. We can experience the power of the gospel by faith in Christ every day of our lives.

Matthew 21:22 NKJV

22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”

Luke 11:9 NKJV

9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Conclusion:

Our journey with Christ is meant to be a growing one that is full of faith and sometimes full of suffering. Our experience is to be a testimony of the handiwork of Christ, not our own efforts.

The lessons learned from Paul’s 5 rhetorical questions give up proof that salvation is by faith in Christ alone and not by our own efforts.

1. A believer corrects error.

2. A believer receives the Spirit by faith, not by observing the law.

3. A believer grows by faith.

4. A believer suffers because of his faith.

5. A believer experiences God’s miraculous work by faith and not by observing the law.