Faith From the Ground Up
Galatians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 14 viewsUnderstanding the origins of faith in Scripture help us to understand our need for individual and personal faith. Faith will put us at odds with culture because Satan guides culture while the Holy Spirit guides believers. Godly fathers have never been more needed than now.
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Transcript
Have you ever been reading a book or watching a movie
You know the bad guy is waiting in the attic
But the hero or heroin s about to go there
and want to scream - “It’s a trap, Don’t do it!”
I felt like that reading Galatians 3:5
5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—
It’s like, “So son, did you have any trouble with your homework last night?”
You know that means your parents know that you weren’t REALLY working on homework with your friend
Jesus supplied the Holy Spirit and Jesus was NOT ticking off elements of law as He performed miracles
In fact, Jesus did ILLEGAL stuff
like healing people on the Sabbath Luke 13:10-14
10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
11 And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”
13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.
14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”
God taught us by His own action that faith and relationship with God are more important than Old Testament law
Since we know this, we know Paul is asking a rhetorical question
Paul is just giving us a reason to figure things out for ourselves
In fact, Paul is setting things up for us to learn of the saving faith of Abraham, right?
Galatians 3:6
6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
It is especially fitting to talk about Abraham on this Fathers Day
You may recall that Abraham was originally known as “Abram”
Abram means “the father is exalted”
God renamed Abram to Abraham
Abraham means “Father of a multitude”
I mentioned this story recently, but I want to bring the full story today
We pick up in Genesis 17:15-21
15 And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”
18 And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!”
19 God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.
20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation.
21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”
Here’s the recap, in common English
Earlier, God promised Abram that he and his wife Sarai would have a child
Sarai just “knew” she couldn’t bear a child at her age so she tried to “help” God by offering her maidservant Hagar as a surrogate mother
That union between Abram and Hagar yielded Ishmael
Then God speaks to Abram again
Abram WILL have a child with Sarai
Isaac was the son they had together by God’s will
Abram laughs, but God still renames them both and proves God is God and Abram is not
Abraham has ever since been the model of faith and fatherhood
To understand how faith enters this picture
We have to go back a bit, though
It was in the original promise God made to Abram
Before Abram and Sarai got impatient
Before they tried to do “it” their way
In Genesis 15:6
6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Abram BELIEVED in God and God’s promises
so, even though Abram would go astray by trying to help God along
God worked through the faith of Abram
and God always lives up to His promises
Why would God still do His part even if Abram got impatient and made a mistake?
Simply because Abram had faith
Even though the faith was imperfect
Abraham would still have offspring as numerous as the stars in Heaven (Genesis 15:5)
Question - Does this mean only biological sons of Abraham can be righteous or saved?
Look at Galatians 3:7
7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
Those “of faith’, are brought into the tent of Abraham
A bit like we have family of birth and family of choice
Or, more accurately
If you are adopted by someone
then you truly are their son or daughter
Before we get carried away
When Paul refers to the “sons of Abraham”
Paul means “those who express faith like Abraham”
That’s how mere Gentiles like us can be a part of Abraham’s “family”
This is similar to me saying “our Faith Family”
Because we share our faith you are in the family
I won’t be verifying your diet
I won’t be making sure you celebrate all the right holidays
I certainly won’t be checking “other” marks of our family of faith either
Takeaway-Faith trumps all else
That is a true statement here at Grace and I hope in your life at home
Throughout Scripture we see that being in a family of birth is not as important as the choices we make
If we choose faith in God then we are brought into Abraham’s family or tribe
And within the family there is tremendous grace and forgiveness
When we deal with one another at Grace
We should be granting grace
We should be thinking the best of people, not the worst
We should know that if their heart is for Jesus then we need to come along side to encourage in righteousness
That’s what families of faith do
We talk from a position of love and forgiveness
As if to start every sentence “Since I love you and we share a love and respect for God, let’s (fill in the blank)
“Since we are in the same family of faith, let’s figure this out together”
We have this great example of Abraham from the Old Testament
The promise is repeated here in Galatians 3:8
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
Know that what we see here as “nations” is sometimes translated as “Gentiles” depending on context
Paul is not suggesting that every country will be blessed
Paul is saying that all who join the tribe of Abraham by having faith will be blessed
Galatians 3:9
9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Even though Abraham’s faith was not perfect
Abraham was a man of faith
After all, Abraham did sleep with the maidservant because he and Sarai thought God needed help
Still, God kept His promise and worked through Abraham
and Abraham and Sarah had a child of their own
So, if Abraham, the symbol of fatherhood, the father of multitudes, was not perfect - who are we to judge other fathers?
I believe men in general and fathers in particular get a bad wrap.
I sometimes think society is waiting for men to fail
We hear “Men step up-be a man”
Then the culture denigrates men for every little failure
Men are too controlling
They are too dominant, but they should control their kids
Just exert no control or heavy influence over women
even if the “woman” is their 16 year old daughter who needs structure
Provide for your kids (money and time)
but do it from a distance
accept the new daddy-figure they have
because we aren’t able to stay together any more
We need intact families with Moms and Dads working together
Raising children from a place of faith in God
Men-sometimes we deserve it
Parents-men and women need to be on “the same page”
Men and women, Mothers and Fathers need to decide
Even when looking up and praising the Lord
look down and see where you are standing
Are you standing on a foundation of cultural norms?
Or are you standing on a foundation of Faith that comes from the Scripture God has given us?
I would ask you to stand and raise your arms to God
Head tilted back
swaying with the experience
For most standing on this concrete foundation
that does not move-or not quickly anyway
you should be pretty steady
But, for some that might look more like a roadside sobriety test
and you might get hurt
Because you get dizzy
You can be assured that if you were standing on a foundation that was changing or morphing
a foundation determined by the random thoughts of others around you
a foundation where rules don’t apply
a foundation where someone can decide that concrete is no longer solid but jelly
a foundation that was crumbling due to the wrong ingredients in the wrong proportion
If you were on a foundation like that, you would certainly fall
Just as you will fall if you stand on the Old Testament law
Faith in the OT comes like this in Psalm 24:1-5
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,
2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.
3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.
5 He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
None of us can stand with totally clean hands
Yet many expect Fathers to be that perfect BEFORE they will honor them
The OT focuses on the faithfulness of God
OT faith is one of covenantal relationship
The relational side of the Abrahamic covenant for instance
Whereas in the NT we have the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah
In the NT “faith” is both a noun and a verb
Paul makes it clear that faith
Requires a commitment of the mind like OT
Also an action based on what we know from Scripture
2 Corinthians 4:13
13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak,
Because we know Jesus through our knowledge of Scripture
we must ACT in a manner God commands
This is my desire for the men of faith
to be the leaders God has called you to be
Know the Word of God
Sundays, Adult Sunday School and Midweek
let your knowledge of the Word of God be your foundation
Because of Scripture you believe in God
Because of Scripture you speak and act
Let our God of the Holy Bible be your foundation for your family now and always.
Amen