“O foolish
Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before
whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law,
or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are
ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:1-3)
It is imperative
that we know what we believe. One of the saddest commentaries on today’s
society is that so many Scientology groups, Mormon churches, Jehovah’s Witness
halls and segment of dozens of other cults are filled with former
Bible-believing Baptists. Many former Catholics have left the Baptist church
and returned to Catholicism. That may be difficult for you to fathom, but it
happens because too many of them did not know what they professed to believe.
I would never do
anything publicly to embarrass my church, but sometimes I feel it would be good
to give the congregation a quiz on some basic Bible facts and issues that all
of us should have known for quite some time. I love teaching a class of new
converts and showing them basic truths from the Word of God, because you can
see so plainly when the light bulb comes on and they get it. It is so cool to
teach something from the Bible and hear a person say, “I never knew that. I
never saw that before.”
The other great
thing about teaching that class is that I am constantly reminded and reaffirmed
concerning the doctrines of the faith. They are simple and straightforward;
there is nothing magical or mystical about them. If you follow God’s Word, you
will have success, but if you reject it, you will find yourself in a world of
hurt. There is an old song entitled, “Trust and Obey.” That sums it up. Do what
the Bible says and trust the Lord, and you will be in good shape.
While I enjoy
begin constantly reminded of these great truths, I am also reminded of how many
people do not know what they believe. We must be able to defend truth.
With this in mind,
consider the STINGING INDICTMENT from Paul in verse 1. Some people say,
“I wish our pastor preached like the Apostle Paul.” Be careful what you wish
for. Paul was brutal. He didn’t cut his audience any slack.
He starts the
third chapter by calling the Galatians foolish. No one in his right mind
would want to receive a letter like that. If you break that word down in this
context, it refers to someone who is mentally lazy and careless in study. He
was telling the church at Galatia, “You were unwilling to study and solidify
what you believe.”
I hope everyone
reading these words is faithful to church for every regular service and
anything else that is going on, but if you are learning your doctrine only in
the four or five hours you are at church each week, you will be weak. You must
take time to do this, and it is hard work. People who say, “I just don’t have
the time,” are the main reason our generation cannot defend what it believes.
Theologically,
Baptists as a group are lazy. Just as we are commanded to worship or to
witness, we are commanded to “study to shew thyself approved unto God,”
according to II Tim. 2:15.
Also in verse 1,
Paul referred to how the people were charmed and led astray by false
teaching. They were flattered with false promises, perhaps by using the
occult, to emphasize feeling over fact and emotion over truth.
So many churches
and religious movements today are advising people not to let doctrine “divide”
them. If you put doctrine in its proper place, you can’t help but divide people
because not everyone believes the same thing. That is just common sense.
During my first
two years as a pastor in Texas in the late 1990s I was invited to be part of a
citywide rally with patriotic and political overtones. At first I went because
I wanted to see what it was like, and I sat on the platform with men from other
denominations in the area, but eventually I decided I was just not comfortable
there. Not everyone on that platform believed the same things I did. My
decision was solidified some time later when I attended a funeral at a church
with which I agreed on almost nothing, and I was asked to give a eulogy because
the deceased woman’s daughter was a member of my church. After I spoke, the man
who followed me spent his entire sermon talking about tongues and gifts of the
Spirit because he knew the room was filled with Baptists. He never talked about
the deceased during his sermon.
As we left the
service, the husband of my church member (who is lost to this day as far as I
know) told his wife, “There was more Bible in what your preacher said in five
minutes than what the other guy said in an hour.” That confirmed in my heart
that I could not be part of a program with someone who would waste an
opportunity to present Christ and choose to try to convince a crowd of people
about something else.
One of the saddest
things a church member can say to me is, “My children are going to
Such-and-Such Church. I don’t agree with everything they believe, but at least
they are going to church.” I would submit that it is better to stay out of
church than to go to a wrong church, because they will not be taught a lie.
There is probably a better chance for the Lord to get hold of their hearts out
on the street in their daily lives than if they are soothed by false teaching
and wrong doctrine every Sunday.
The situation with
the Galatians was a failure of faith. The people were leaving the faith
of Christ and moving into a fleshly realm. Anyone who has been around
Christianity for very long knows that more Christians walk by flesh than by
faith, and that is a dangerous thing. If you fool around too long without
properly educating yourself from the Word of God, you eventually come up with
your own flesh-centered doctrine. At that point, as we see so often in today’s
society, truth becomes irrelevant.
The final phrase
of verse 1 suggests that Christ was openly and publicly preaching when these
people were alive, and they had received His death burial and resurrection for
their salvation before turning away. No works were taught or preached during
Christ’s ministry, so these changes had come later.
Notice in verse 2
the SPIRITUAL INVESTMENT made by Paul in the lives of the Galatians. In
saying, “This only would I learn of you,” he is expressing his desire
that someday they could teach him, instead of him always having to teach them.
He was saying in essence, “I wish that you could get this so I wouldn’t have to
keep showing it to you.”
In his letters to
the Corinthians, Paul mentioned that he wanted to give the people meat but had
to give them milk instead because that was all they could handle. I have often
wondered what he was referred to in that passage. Here is a deep theological
truth that many Christians need to get hold of today: Grow up! At some point
you need to start digging out the truth on your and making it personal. Stop
living off the labor and teaching of others. Your pastor is there to get you
started; you need to crank it up and get going on your own.
Since the
Galatians weren’t getting it, Paul had to establish the doctrine once
again. In asking the basic question at the end of verse 2, he pointed out that
they were trying to finish in the flesh what they had started in faith. Living
in the flesh for God is not too far from living in the flesh for Satan. When
you stop living by faith, you are in trouble. Faith is what makes you grow and
move forward for God. Faith, grace and mercy are not just salvation terms; they
are also sanctification terms. Having a church full of people who were saved by
faith but are living in the flesh is what produces a lot of castaways and
wrecked lives.
Look at Rom. 1:17.
“For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it
is written, The just shall live by faith.” When you were saved you did not
eliminate the flesh factor, but you gained the faith factor. To have victory,
you need to live by faith just like you were saved by faith.
The Bible says in
Rom. 10:16-17, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith,
Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God.” You may have thought those verses referred to
salvation, but they are actually about Christian living. The problem that I see
in our families is that we are not living by faith. You must have faith to
continue in the Christian life.
Why is so little
done spiritually in the home? Why do you depend upon Sunday morning, Sunday
night, and Wednesday night to feed your family? If you want your children to
grow, they have to be fed a steady diet of faith. It has to be modeled and
demonstrated for them on a regular basis. If you are going to live by faith,
you need to invest in that. A good movie lasts two hours, and a good ball game
is longer than that. It doesn’t take many such events to eat up a lot of time.
We frequently feed other things more than we feed our faith. Our lives are so
chaotic that you have to work to fit spiritual things into your schedule.
Your giving is a
way to model your faith. Going above your tithe with special offerings and
giving to missions will stretch you and your family. Perhaps you would like to
take your family on a mission trip, and you know you must trust God to provide
the resources for that. What a great way to model your faith in front of your
children.
Read Eph. 1:13-14.
“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with
that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” The
Holy Spirit is in you, but you still have your flesh. You must make a conscious
choice to both fortify and feed that part of you by continually submitting
yourself to Him, or you will fortify and feed the flesh. A lot of folks are
starving the Spirit of God while fattening the flesh. Paul teaches over and
over throughout the New Testament that there must be a crucifying of the flesh
so the Spirit of God can have liberty in our lives, to do for us and through us
what He wishes to do. We need to take a good look at what we are feeding and
fortifying.
The SANCTIFICATION
of our flesh is addressed in verse 3. Sanctification is the process by which we
become spiritually mature. Paul uses the word “perfect” in this case. “Are
ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the
flesh?”
Salvation is
instantaneous. Once it is done, it is done. You do not lose your salvation. In
the Bible, the words “all” and “eternal” mean exactly what we
have always known them to mean every single time. Once you trust Christ, you
are saved all the time and forever.
On the other hand,
sanctification is not instantaneous. It is the process or perfection or
maturation. If you had a child, you would be sad if he or she were still in an
infant stage by the fifth or sixth birthday. You want your children to mature
in every way – physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally.
You may have been
saved 50 years, but if you have not progressed spiritually you are still an
infant. As a pastor I have changed a lot of 60-year-old diapers in my lifetime.
It is amusing to me to see a senior citizen throw a spiritual fit like a
middle-school student, and I have seen plenty of them.
Salvation takes an
instant, but sanctification takes the rest of your life until you meet the
Lord. I know a 92-year-old man in my church who is a wonderful Christian, and
he would tell you, “I haven’t arrived, but I am making progress.” He has a
fantastic walk with God, but he is still working on it.
You don’t arrive
in a weekend. It’s a long journey and you are going to mess up along the way,
but God knows that and has already placed those missteps under the blood. He
wants you to keep moving forward, not backward, in His grace and with His help.
How does He do this?
* By paying our
sin debt. According to II Cor. 5:21, “For he hath made him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
We have the ability to mature as Christians because we are already saved. God
gave Christ the authorization to take our place, and as we accept His death,
burial and resurrection as payment for our sin, we take on His righteousness as
He takes our sin. The eternal security of our salvation is a solid foundation
upon which we can build a victorious life, and any theology that causes you to
constantly question your salvation is a wicked tool to keep you in spiritual
infancy.
* By providing
grace to live victoriously, as we see in Rom. 6:14. “For sin shall not
have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
Living the Christian life is physically impossible in the flesh. You cannot
possibly be a good enough Christian on your own.
* By giving us
the Person of the Holy Spirit. Rom. 8:13 says, “For if ye live after the
flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the
body, ye shall live.” When you are saved, you get the Holy Spirit sealing
you and indwelling you. You do not have to give in to sin anymore because He is
working in you and through you. When you lead control of your fleshly desires
to Him, He will lead you into righteousness.
* By removing
the penalty of sin. Rom. 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit.” This is a doctrine that must be taught clearly. We
are not under the guilt of sin anymore. “I have to tell God about this awful
thing I did.” He knew about it when He died on the cross, as He bore all of our
sins for us. It is already paid in full.
* By removing
the power of sin. Look at Rom. 8:9. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in
the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” The power of sin is no longer
controlling you when you move toward the Spirit and away from the flesh.
Sometimes people doubt their salvation because they are seeing sin in a
different light, and that is because the Holy Spirit is working.
* By removing
the presence of sin. One day, the words of I Cor. 15:50-53 will come alive
for us: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew
you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall
sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For
this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality.” One day the Lord will take us all home to be with Him, and
sin will never be a problem again.
Faith saves you,
but it also grows you and matures you. If you thought you were saved by works,
you could keep working from now on and never be saved. When there is an
emptiness of self and a trust in Him alone, and you recognize the utter
hopelessness of a life without Him, you have no choice but to trust by faith.
The same faith that saved you is what will keep you growing in Christ.
We all should work
for God as a way of demonstrating our faith, but our works do not impress God.
To be honest, just doing what you should be doing as a Christian should not
impress any of us. We should expect each other to be in church, to tithe, and
to tell others about Jesus. God expects that from us as well.
There should be
some things about our lives that set us apart from the world, but if live your
entire life to please others or ultimately please God by your works, it will
lead to a life of frustration because you are never going to do enough. It will
always be a case of, “What have you done for me lately?” Churches built on
performance-based faith eventually fall apart because no one can maintain that
level of pressure.
We all need to get back to the attitude of living our
lives for God because we love Him and want to give Him our best, not to impress
Him.
