Tune-Up

You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “He who practices them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

INTRO: You know those things in life that “shouldn’t be” in life, but you just ignore? You know, that squeaky door, the clothes that are still in the dryer, skinny jeans… Most of us you have a car, so how many of you have something not quite right that you ignore… that clinking sound, that slight pull to the left, the check-engine light… I have a buddy who, no joke, put a piece of tape over his check-engine light because it stressed him out...

Well the truth is, that sometimes we get “off” in our spiritual lives as well, and often we ignore these issues rather than address them.

That was true for the Galatians. If you remember a few weeks ago, we noted that they had gotten off-track. They had, deserted Christ and went chasing after the teaching of the Judaizers (1:6). The Judaizers, you may recall, were a group who taught that you had to earn your salvation by keeping all the traditions and laws.

As we roll into chapter 3, Paul makes an impassioned plea for the Galatians to wake up! The language in verse 1 tells us a lot. Now, by calling them ‘foolish,’ Paul is not insulting them like you might be thinking. To be called foolish, while probably not a compliment, was more to call their attention to their lack of understanding. The Galatians were evidently not thinking clearly, and someone needed to tell them!

This ties right back to the previous chapter where Paul shared how he confronted Peter when Peter was acting in hypocrisy. The Galatians were certainly not the first ones or the only ones Paul ever confronted. And just as he helped restore Peter, Paul hoped to bring the Galatians back on track as well.

In calling them out, Paul again lays out the problem. The Galatians had been deceived- the word he uses is ‘bewitched’. This lends us to the idea that they had been ‘taken in’ by the Judaizer; hypnotized by the teachings and were following as if they never heard the truth of the Gospel. Of course, we know they heard the truth… Paul claims here in v. 1 that he was faithful to preach Jesus clearly.

Did they forget the truth?

I know of people who have heard the gospel, who were excited about Jesus and His Kingdom and the Christian mission. Yet, at some point they were drawn away… some to liberalism and others to legalism.

The problem with being deceived is that you don’t know you are being deceived!!

Perhaps there was something alluring about the tradition or formality of these Judaizers… even some sort of self-gratification as they began to live as if they deserved a place in God’s kingdom. They were being led astray, trusting in themselves more than in the grace of God.

So, as we prepare to dive in, let us remember that Paul has already condemned the false teachers and teaching (Ch. 1). Further, he has primed his audience for this rebuke/ corrective action by sharing his confrontation with Peter. Now, having verbally shaken the church awake, Paul gives instruction on how to evaluate and correct this error.

We might say, he showed the Galatians how to ‘check themselves and correct themselves before they wrecked themselves’ (yes, i am that hip…) So, if you picked up a bulletin, I invite you to follow along with me using the sermon guide as we learn together. The message is entitled “Tune-up: Evaluating and Correcting our Christian Walk”

The very first thing Paul calls the Galatians to do, and what you and I need to do as we see our life begin to veer off-track is to

Reflect Upon Your Salvation (2)

READ v. 2

This is a rhetorical question, but let’s unpack it.

Do you recognize what was accomplished when you were converted; when you were saved?

Paul words it to emphasize the reception of the Holy Spirit. When you were saved, God gifted you with His Holy Spirit, that is the very person of the Holy Spirit indwells in you. Your body is a temple (1 Cor. 6:19-20), not because it’s worthy to be a temple, but because it is where God’s presence dwells!

In the OT, we see that God’s presence dwelt in the temple or tabernacle before that. Not because that old building or tent was worthy, but because God was determined to dwell among His people. Now, listen- the temple was set apart and devoted to God’s purposes, not man’s. That’s why Jesus went through there with a whip, knocking over tables.. they had perverted that which God had set apart.

When you received the Holy Spirit, you were set apart for His glory. It’s no wonder why Paul was so passionate here- the Galatians had been deceived and their lives no longer reflected God’s purposes.

Upon your conversion, you received the the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life and also were sealed by Him. The seal of the Holy Spirit is that which marks your identity in God’s Kingdom. When you have received the Holy Spirit, you have been set apart from the world to be counted in God’s family. You were, as Jesus told Nicodemus, BORN AGAIN.

Now, follow with me here- how many of you were born? How many of you birthed yourself? (Not possible, right!?!)

That’s what Paul is getting at as he asks, did you receive the Holy Spirit because you earned it or because you trusted in God to endow you with His very presence?

What makes our conversion such a glorious and powerful moment in our lives? Is it that we achieved a status… earned enough coins to purchase it, or somehow earned enough credit hours to graduate into salvation?

NO!! The glorious truth of salvation is that:

Ephesians 2:8–9 NASB95

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

When was the last time you truly reflected upon God’s grace in your salvation?

ILL - We sing songs about our salvation all the time… we sing about that

Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me (I am that wretch!)

About the blood of Jesus that washed my sins away (I am that filthy sinner!)

About how Jesus paid it ALL (I am the debtor who cannot possibly pay!)

Do we really take time to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit has come into us? About the transformation in our lives and about how this came about even as we DESERVED wrath.

Romans 5:8 NASB95

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

In the midst of their error, Paul encouraged the Galatians to reflect upon their conversion and consider the source and power that brings salvation and redemption. In the following verses, we see Paul’s gives a call to

Discuss: What does it mean that Christians receive the Holy Spirit by faith? Reflect upon your salvation and discuss how you came to faith in Christ.

Evaluate your Spiritual Growth (3-5)

Again, Paul draws attention to the Galatians’ lack of understanding as he probes. It’s both a condemnation and expression of pity towards them. And again, he uses a rhetorical question (READ v 3)

One commentator paraphrased it this way: “Surely you can’t be so idiotic as to think that a man begins his spiritual life in the Spirit and then completes it by reverting to outward observances.”

Curtis Vaughan, Galatians, Founders Study Guide Commentary (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2005), 60.

Let’s think this through: What do you attribute your spiritual growth to?

Disciplines like reading the Bible, prayer, and coming to church?

Serving - like on mission trips, in church ministries, or in the community?

These are great Sunday-School answers, and they are good things. But you need to hear this:

Our spiritual growth- our sanctification, or becoming more like Jesus only happens through the Holy Spirit working in us.

Jesus gave the command that in order to follow Him, we must die to ourselves (Luke 9:23). As we learned a couple weeks ago, we are crucified with Christ, and called to live lives that are surrendered to His lordship. And remember, when we were born again, we were born to a newness of life (Rom. 6:4)

Now, Paul goes on to ask another couple rhetorical questions. In verse 4, he alludes to the Galatians willingness to suffer for their faith. We don’t know exactly what kind of suffering they experienced - reproach, affliction, persecution, etc. , but here is what you need to note: they were so convinced of the gospel that they joyfully faced these hardships.

And in their hardships, they experienced God’s mercy. They saw lives transformed as the church grew. They saw evidences of the Holy Spirit working in their community and Paul asked them:

Was all of that for nothing?

Did God do these great works because you preached conformity to tradition or because you preached about the power of the cross? Did God transform lives because people adhered to a legal standard or because God took their heart of stone and made it a heart of flesh?

So, how do we grow spiritually?

By walking in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit that lives in us. Paul dives into this concept later in this letter, but let me just emphasize that our walk - even though we might have some good disciplines, our walk must be led by the Holy Spirit if we expect to grow.

I wonder how your spiritual growth is going? Are you growing? Or are you stagnate?

Discuss: What kind of spiritual growth have you noticed in your life over the last year? How do you become sanctified?

When things are a bit sideways in our life, we need to take time to reflect upon our salvation, and to evaluate our spiritual growth. But thinking and evaluating only get us so far. As we look to verses 6-14, we see that in order to correct the errors, we must

Look to Scripture (6-14)

ILL: My first vehicle was a 1978 Ford F-100 Ranger pickup. It had a 350 HP engine, 2 barrel carburetor, positive traction rear-end, and 100 more things that turned into problems to diagnose and work on nearly every weekend. Now, this was before Google and Youtube, so in order to fix my problems, I had to refer to the big maintenance and trouble-shooting book that I paid nearly $60 for at Advance Auto. But every piece of that truck was covered in those pages.

Now, I tell you that to tell you this: If we are going to address problems in our spiritual life, we need to have a reference point. That reference point is the Holy Bible- God’s inerrant, infallible Word.

Paul walks the Galatians to this point as well. He goes back to Abraham, before the Law was ever given to Moses, and walks through to Jesus’ fulfillment of the covenant that God made with Abraham.

The Galatians had been duped by the Judaizers who twisted Scripture and likely sprinkled in a few extras for good measure. They were convinced that the only way to be redeemed was by fulfilling the Law and keeping the traditions. Yet Paul says that the Gospel was even preached to Abraham and it was by faith that he was counted as righteous. Further, he points out that the Law brought only condemnation- the condemnation that Christ bore for you and for me.

Here is what you and I need to see:

Paul, after asking some 6 rhetorical questions to the Galatians who were enamored by the Judaizers emphasis on the Law, now quotes 6 Old Testament passages to prove that salvation is by faith, not works of the Law. So, in essence, to refute the Judaizers’ claim about the Law, Paul points to the Law.

This is the same technique Jesus used as He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. Satan tried to pervert God’s Word, Jesus used God’s Word correctly to refute him.

If we are going to correct our errors, we cannot simply do so by ‘what feels right’ or by what our society says is right. No, we must look to God’s Word in order to tune our thinking to the mind of Christ. And as we look to God’s Word, we don’t judge the Scriptures based on our experiences, but rather we test our experience by God’s Word.

Now, you might be thinking “this is hard… how can I do this?”

Listen church, you must rely on the Holy Spirit. Every day. Every time you open God’s Word, you must remember that the same grace that brought you to salvation is administered through the Holy Spirit to bring you to grow more like Christ.

Let me ask you- Do you need a spiritual tune up today?

As we close, I want to invite you to respond to God’s Word.

Have you been taken in by the world? Or are you surrendered to Christ’s Lordship?

Are you growing in your spiritual walk? Do you need to repent of your sins?

Discuss: How confidently do you approach the Bible? What would help you?