A Message Received By Faith
A MESSAGE RECEIVED BY FAITH Trinity
Galatians chapters 3,4 14.4.19
Here are two bank statements. This one shows that there is nothing in this account. Worse, it is seriously overdrawn and is millions and millions of dollars in the red. The person who owns this account is in serious trouble.
The person who owns the second account has never been in debt. Not even one withdrawal. This man is billions in credit.
What would it be like if the man with the full account says to the man who is in the red, “Let’s swap. I’ll take on your debts, and you get my billions. Here, I’ll sign my account over to you here and now. It will make you rich, and me the debtor.”
What’s the catch? We sometimes say “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Might the man in debt end up owing more? Might it be a con: is the man in debt going to have to become his slave, or to hand over his daughter, or do some heroic or even dirty deed the rich man will require?
What if there is no catch? What if it’s a great offer? What if all the bankrupt man has to do is to say “thank you”?
With Jesus there is no catch. It’s a totally free deal.
Paul told us last week in Galatians 2:20: “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 the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself in my place.”
What was in Paul’s account? Theft. Murder. Pride. Covetousness. Idolatry. His account was seriously in deficit – he owed more than he could ever repay.
God has done a swap. Jesus has taken on Paul’s account and Jesus’ perfect life and death are in his account. Paul stands before God, rich, profoundly rich.
What heroic deed did Paul have to do, or which set of laws did he need to obey, in order to clinch the deal? He says in 3:22 “the promise by the faithfulness of Jesus is given to those who believe.”
As we learned last week from chapter 2, the pivotal faith here is the faith or the faithfulness of Jesus. Who gets the benefit of his faith? Those who have faith.
Not those who have been good, but “those who believe”. Not those who get most things right having come to Jesus, but “those who believe”. Not those who have been baptised, and become loyal church members, but “those who believe”. The righteousness of Jesus is credited to those who believe, who come to him by faith alone.
That used to be the conviction of these Christians at Galatia. But something has gone seriously wrong for them. 3:1 “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?”
They used to think that faith alone in Christ alone was all that was necessary, but someone has told them that to be really right with God, they need some add-ons, like being circumcised and obeying other laws from the Old Testament.
Can that be right? They need to answer a few questions:
What happened when you turned to Jesus and believed? Did you receive the Holy Spirit (v2)? Did God miraculously change your lives (v5)? Was that on condition of being circumcised or doing something else? No.
What was it like for others before you? Even for Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith? “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.” (v6) Was it because he was circumcised? No, that came later. Righteous then and there, because he believed the promise of God.
Has God changed things since Abraham? No – it’s still like that: “those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (v9)
If it’s about doing the right thing, how much right is enough? Only if you keep all of his laws. “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the law of God and do them.” (v10B) Get one wrong, and you are under God’s curse. You want merit with God by what you do? Try than for an hour and you’re sunk.
Has God added law-keeping to faith, to be saved? After all, he added the law after he made a covenant with Abraham. No: “if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.” (v18) A promise is a promise is a promise.
Why, then, did God give his laws? Not to score you points. The law is like a prison guard (v23) or the guy who punishes you when you don’t do what is right (v24). His law doesn’t make you right, but tells you when you are wrong. Why? So that you will throw yourself on Jesus for mercy. “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under” (v25) the rule of the guard or the disciplinarian.
So … to put all that together. Did you get into God’s family by keeping the rules? No. Was Abraham righteous by keeping the rules? No. Has God changed the requirement of faith alone since Abraham? No. Has anyone ever kept God’s rules? No. Have the rules changed the promise of God? No.
Then how did someone convince these early Christians that they needed to start keeping rules in order to be “really saved”?
Who hoodwinked you into believing that this sin might make God love you less, and this obedience make him love you more? Who conned you into thinking that you are safer now than the day you turned to Jesus? Who has tricked you into believing that because of your goodness, you are more worthy of his grace today than last week?
Is it only Galatian Christians who ask “Can’t I do something to help me stay forgiven? Isn’t that question close to you? If not in good times, in bad? If not in bad times, but when you’re sailing?
This is a deadly and ugly way to think. Can I help turn you away from that foolish path by looking at 3 blessings that come from “Christ alone, by faith alone”? They are resolve, release and riches.
- RESOLVE
It can be intimidating to live as a believer in our culture. Not that we face a raised fist, for more likely we have to face off against the raised eyebrow:
- “You don’t really believe in heaven and hell, do you?”
- “You don’t really believe this that about abortion or gender or sexuality or marriage, do you?”
- “You don’t really think this old Book is true, do you?”
- “You don’t really want to make such a big deal about Jesus in a relativistic, multi-ethnic world, do you?”
Should we just back down and be more prepared to be one option among many on the table? Can’t we just live and let live, without sounding awkward, or as though we alone are right?
Back to Abraham for a minute. Yes, he did believe the promise of God that he would have a son, though he is 75 and his wife Sarah is 65. The son however didn’t come. So at about 85 and 75, they take things into their own hands. A son by Sarah’s servant, Hagar, was their answer. His name is Ishmael. It could have been “I did it my way”.
15 or so years later, there is a son by Sarah. His name is Isaac. It could have been “God did it his way, according to promise”. Two sons – but only one is the son of promise. 4:30 “What does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the fee woman.’”
That’s fairly tough, isn’t it? It wasn’t, as God provided for Hagar and her son but it is a picture of some tough and resolute action.
Paul is quoting it here, because he wants us to know that we cannot mix the “Jesus helps those who help themselves” message with the “Jesus alone by faith alone” message. This is not one where you can live and let live.
Always courteous, and reasonable? Of course. But “Do It Yourself” religions and the “God does it all” message of the Bible are polar opposites. They are not variations on the same theme, whether the others are Muslim, JW’s or good ‘Do It Yourself Australians’.
Due to the chapter 3 certainties, we may be resolved, and resolute and because of the watertight reasons God has given us in chapter 3, we can be, with confidence and without reservation.
The second blessing of God’s way is:
- RELEASE
Paul says in 4:3 “when we were children (a way of describing Jews) we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world” … Don’t do this, do that, do it this way, don’t do it that way. It was like being a slave under the thumb of his master.
What about now? “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our heart, crying, ‘Abba, Father’. So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir.” (4:6,7) No longer a slave in the house, but a son of the owner of the house.
When I was at Bible College, for a while I shared a room with Isaac Ababio from Ghana. He was so black that when we turned the light off, I never knew where he was until he opened his eyes of his mouth. Before he was a Christian, Isaac was an animist. He believed that there were gods in animals, trees and mountains.
He knew he was a sinner, and that these gods were angry with him because of that. So even as a child, life for him involved sacrifices to those gods, brave deeds and acts of penance. He said that he would go to bed at night wondering if he had done enough. The next day, he would try harder, just in case he hadn’t.
One day a missionary told him of the true God who was indeed angry with him. He told Isaac that this God had done enough to completely satisfy his anger, and that nothing extra was needed.
Isaac said that he believed that, turned to Jesus, and slept as a free man, with a clear conscience, for the first time.
Free to do anything he pleased? Of course not – his heart and his life now belonged to Jesus. But he was released from fear and from condemnation and from the treadmill of always having to do more.
Some say it is loving to leave people of other cultures alone, with their own beliefs and traditions. My friend Isaac praised God every day that someone loved him enough to bring him a message that set him truly free.
What about those who have become Christians? When John Wesley became a Christian, he and some friends bound themselves to a set of rules for life. He later wrote “I had then only the faith of a servant and not that of a son.” Their rules had become more important than knowing they were free in Jesus.
Might you be like that? Thinking that your obedience to Jesus keeps you in the family, or that your failures risk your being tossed out? So that you have lost your sense of being free? Dear friends, the heat is off. There is full salvation for those who believe. Your marks do not determine your merit. The Jesus-alone-by-faith-alone message tells you your account is full, and can never be anything but full.
- Resolve. 2. Release
3. RICHES
4:4 says that “God sent forth his Son” … so that, in 4:5 “we might receive adoption as sons”. And then in 4:7 “You are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
One of the most precious privileges of life for Sue and me has been to adopt a precious daughter. We think, there has been some blessing in that for her. The adoption of which God speaks here is in a class of its own. Jesus is Son of God by nature. I stand alongside him as son of God by adoption. With a name, access to God, a future and possessions that Jesus shares with me.
You want rich? Who in Australia is richer than that?
In the world of the first century, only sons could inherit the family farm. What bad luck for daughters. And still worse for slaves.
In God’s family, 3:28,29, “There is neither slave nor free, neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring heirs according to promise.”
Are we still Jews or Greeks, male or female? Sure. This isn’t a recipe for saying there are no distinctions in the family of God. It is saying that there are no distinctions when it comes to belonging to God, and enjoying the rich mercies he gives away.
Who here will inherit more than the rest? Adults more than children? Men more than women? No, there are no distinctions on this one. We are all equally written into God’s will. We are all equally children of Abraham. We are all equally rich.
“Equally” doesn’t work if it’s down to what we all do. For some of us are better at following Jesus than others.
It’s down to Jesus, received by faith alone. Jesus, so magnificent in his grace, we can’t but be resolute about him. Released never to be on any treadmill ever again. Rich with a wealth that defies description. Who wants to go anywhere else but to him?