Works of Law vs Hearing with Faith

Well, good morning. We're going to continue in Galatians chapter 3 and we're going to cover verses 4 and 5 today. But actually we're going to go back and look at the first three verses that Mike did last week. And then this is actually part of a pattern we're going to see here that Once Paul finishes with verse 5, he's going to give a wonderful example of Abraham, which is really kind of amazing.

He's going to prove his point. He's making a point about the works versus the hearing of faith. So he's going to use Abraham as an example of that. So I kind of like this gentleman, Chester McCauley. A lot of you folks listen to him online. He does a really marvelous job. And he has an outline that I'd like to make use of here a little bit.

He labels this section in chapter 3, 1 through 14, law-keeping never justifies. And by that, he means that by keeping the law, by keeping the rules, you cannot be justified before God, cannot be declared righteous. And so he kind of breaks it down into basically, this was not the way the Gentiles were justified. And that's verses 1 through 5. Five points for the five verses.

The first point is the conditions described. We're going to review that from last week, what the conditions of the Galatian believers. Then the question, the rhetorical question that Paul's going to ask. Actually, if you look at that verse, he asks a question in every verse. But I think one of the main questions is in verse 2. Then he's going to talk about inconsistency, that the Galatians, they were saved by faith, Are they going to live a Christian life by the law? And he says that doesn't make sense to anybody.

And then there's the consequences of our faith in Christ, which is going to talk about suffering, which is kind of interesting. Paul's going to interject here in the midst of his teaching about law versus grace. He's going to interject a section about suffering. And so we'll look at that a little bit. And then the last part in verse 5 is going to talk about a conclusion and repeat the contrast.

And this section, even though it's small, even though those few verses are very small, are just really packed full of really neat stuff, especially about the Holy Spirit. In fact, I had not realized, and I know Andrew looks at his dad's material a lot too, where our brother Hal actually had listed his 22 aspects of the Holy Spirit's ministry. And all of a sudden, in my study, he said, well, this is where he got it. It's obvious, Roger. Why didn't you see this? I mean, it's like, duh. But it's really pretty cool.

So so this is the section. where he expands the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And scripture, you know, is exactly talking about that. So then we talk about the next following two weeks. Mike and I, you know, we meet on Tuesday and we say, well, okay, here are the verses coming up and what about this, what about that?

And I said, Mike, Abraham, think about this. This is an amazing person in scripture. Think about Abraham. Abraham was before the law. Think about this. If you're going to use an example to Jewish people, here's a guy that believed before there was law. How did he ever get saved? If you're going to say it requires the law of Moses to get saved, or any law system, this Abraham blows you out of the water because there was no law. So anyway, it's pretty cool.

We're going to get to that in the next couple of weeks. And so two parts to that. Salvation obtained. and basically salvation applied. So the next two weeks will cover six through nine. So here's my little take on verses one through five. So the issues I think that Paul's addressing, and I left one out, I think, is salvation by faith or by works. Are we going to work for our salvation? Are we going to prove ourselves worthy to God? And he's going to say, well, good job. I'm going to reward you with eternal life. Or are we going to trust in what He's promised to us in His Son? And then once we're saved, do we live by faith or by works? And I think this is the real tragedy of the modern era in Christianity. I think you'll have a hard time.

Most churches that teach anything about Scripture, about Christ, they'll say, yeah, OK, you're saved, but it takes faith, brother. But boy, when you get down to how I live the Christian life, They just, they go off the rail. They gotta have something to do. They gotta hand you, here's the things you gotta do to be a good Christian. But scripture teaches exactly the opposite of that.

Your faith doesn't continue. You started by faith, you're continued by faith. And then the ministry of the Holy Spirit, which I talked about. And then there's a fourth one which is in there. It's about suffering in the Christian life. And Paul's gonna say that's absolutely part and parcel of the Christian life. You cannot be a Christian and not suffer.

Actually, I taught a class back eons ago in Sunday school. I had a gentleman raise his hand, and I talked about suffering. And he said, you know, brother, I never suffered. And I actually was kind of taken aback. He said, no, I never suffered. And actually, in some ways, you should be sorry for the guy.

I don't know. Suffering is so much in tune with the believer's life that if you eliminate that, you eliminate the message that God would have you be. Not to say that God is in the business of making you suffer, but just because we have a fallen nature and we have a fallen world, the Christian is going to suffer. And then lastly, we'll cover this next week, the example of Abraham. It's cool. Abraham the believer. He's a believer before the law. which is amazing.

Okay, so let's get into the review here. Actually, before the review, I just want to kind of show you. So I'm going to review verses 1, 2, and 3, and then we're going to focus on 4 and 5 for today. And actually, in the review, we're going to hopefully point out some things along the way here. So let's get to the first verse.

It says, You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. So just a couple of points. Mike did a great job on this. A couple of points. I thought it really pointed back to what Paul had taught back in verse 6. And a very similar kind of statement.

Here he's talking about the gospel. He says, I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. So in this case, he's amazed by they went off and went for a different gospel. In this verse, he's amazed about the fact that they're foolish and bewitched by wanting to follow a law system to believe. So I found three points here.

Foolish, basically, is the idea you're not using your head. You know, you use that expression sometimes, maybe to your kids or other people, you say, You know Johnny, you know Sarah, you're not using your head here. Think about this. Let's think about this.

It's literally they're ignoring the Word of God and listening to these false teachers. That's what they're doing. They're not using their heads. And secondly, they're bewitched to be misled by deception. Notice the idea of a magician. He comes out and he takes a hat and he pulls a rabbit out of it, right? And you say, oh, that's not true. And he saws a lady in half and does all this stuff. How did he do that? It looked like he saw that person in half, but there's still a hole, and so they were being misled by being bewitched by deception.

And then lastly, this is interesting, and Mike did a great job, this is the idea that he's publicly portrayed as crucified. So how did the Galatians believers see Christ publicly portrayed as crucified? So you can think, well, they didn't have cell phones, they didn't have photographs, they didn't have all this stuff that we have, so they couldn't, how would they do that? So you think through this and think, well, let's see, if I was going to portray Christ, how would I do that? How would a person do that? And you think, well, wait a minute. What did Paul do in his ministry?

He had all these missionary journeys, right? He went through Galatia, he went through Lystra, Iconium, Derbe, and Antioch. I have a little picture about that later. But he went through all, every three missionary journeys, he went through these towns.

And so he gave out the good news. He gave out the news about Jesus Christ. So he publicly, right, he told them about Christ. He died on the cross, he was buried, and he rose on the third day. He told them, he portrayed him as crucified. So I think that this publicly portrayed as crucified is Paul giving out the gospel message, telling them about Christ.

And that's, so I described to you many times, isn't it wonderful? I remember being on a camping trip. Actually, I took Ryan. I went one time with Ryan and then other times with my older son. But we go on this camping trip. There's this guy that was just incredible. He could tell stories and you just thought, man, this is just real, especially scary stories about there's something coming out of the woods that's going to get you and this and that. And you believe it. Man, something bad's going to happen. I better rush to my tent and jump in my sleeping bag. Something bad's going to happen to me.

So with words, you can portray and explain to people, we have a Savior that was crucified. So I think that's a message that says, how was Christ portrayed as crucified to these Galatian believers? So that's verse 1. Verse 2, it says, and I think it's a rhetorical question.

So he's saying, I want to find out something from you guys. I want to find out something from you guys. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing with faith? How did you receive the Spirit? And if you look in the book of Acts, it's undeniable in the early church that the Spirit of God was working miraculously.

And if you read, I have a couple of these written out here, typed out. In Acts chapter 2, it talks about, Acts chapter 2 verse 4, it says, And they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. And we know if you're a good Bible student, other tongues is other languages, and it's apparent from the text that's other languages. So the Holy Spirit enabled men to speak with other languages.

So that was a proof of these people being saved in that era. And also in 1044 and 1046 it talks about, this is Peter when he goes to the Gentiles. It said, all the circumcised believers who came to Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing, them speaking with tongues, and exalting God." I'll just stop there. So the same thing occurred with the Gentiles, that the Holy Spirit enabled them to speak in other languages for his purpose. So the gift of the Holy Spirit to believers in the New Testament times, early church, was proof that they were believers.

But you might say, why didn't he just say, How did you get saved? Why does he say, did you receive the Spirit? I think it's because the fact that the Jewish believers were used to the fact that the early church of these miraculous things by the Holy Spirit. So he goes on, but the Galatians were being misled into believing that the works of the law were responsible for receiving the Spirit.

And actually, if you look carefully and if you have the ability to do that, you can look and there's actually no definite article. So you could render that to be the principle, the principle of law. So you could you could say you could say the principle of. of works or rule keeping. And I think it really is helpful to see that it doesn't matter. You can try to obey the Mosaic law. You can try to obey any set of rules.

But that's insufficient to bring you salvation and our Savior. It's only by the hearing with faith. And that's why Paul repeats this. He repeats this in verse 5, this contrast between the works of the law and the hearing by faith. OK, so that's verse 2. Verse 3, Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? And so here's the contrast. He's saying, well, you began in your Christian life by the Spirit. Are you now being perfected by the flesh? So foolish, that's kind of an intensive statement. He had foolish before, now he has so foolish. It's like, you're foolish, you're so foolish. Or so lacking is another explanatory thing like that.

Having begun by the Spirit, you began your Christian life by dependence upon the Holy Spirit to guide you into all the truth. You know that wonderful verse in John 16 where it says, But when He, the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak. And He will disclose to you what is to come. So the Holy Spirit is to show you the things of Christ.

So if you begin by that, so how are you being perfected or brought to maturity? Are you being brought to the spirit of maturity by the flesh, by the works of the law, by rule keeping? Absolutely not. Absolutely not being brought to salvation by that.

So that's the first three verses, which Mike covered last week. And now I'd like to kind of, so Paul kind of switches gears. So now he just, verse five starts off. It seems like, well, Paul, what are you doing here? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? So I'd like to, Ron Merriman did a paraphrase of this verse.

He says, you suffered many things due to your profession of faith in the gospel that I preached, that Paul preached, were these sufferings to no purpose. So what's being presented here is the fact that when you become a believer, You receive the Holy Spirit, and the idea of suffering in your Christian life is something that God... He doesn't sit around saying, well, how can I make this believer and that believer suffer? He realizes that in the Christian life you'll have suffering for a variety of reasons.

So let's look at that. So I mentioned this before. Why does Paul address believer sufferings in the midst of faith versus works? So we look at the verse. You Galatians suffer so many things. So it's in the Aorist tense, past point fact. So it's reality.

They were suffering. So if you're a good Bible student, you say, well, where do I find that? Where do I find the Galatians that lived in these cities? Where do I find them suffering? So there's a passage, I think, that speaks to that. So I'd like to go through that.

And before I go to the passage, it was Paul's custom If you look in Acts 13, you'll find that in the early part of chapter 13, he goes to a synagogue, and it's in the Presidium of Antioch. And he goes on the Sabbath day, which was his custom. So he preaches to the Jews first, and then later he's going to preach to the Gentiles. And on the first Sabbath day, many of the Jewish believers, they believe in what he said. There are also proselytes there. I wanted to hear more on the next Sabbath day. So now we get into the dialogue of Acts 13, 44.

Actually, I wanted to show you this first. I find this is a really cool chart. It kind of came across us when we first started Galatians. If you look carefully there, you'll see that the section called Galatia on that, you notice there's four towns. There's Presidia, Antioch, there's Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe. If you notice the red, The pink and the blue lines all go through those cities. And this amazes me, and I've seen many charts, but this is the best one that kind of highlights the fact that Paul spent a lot of time going through those cities, talking to the Galatian believers. So he knew them. They were on his heart. So in this case, he's going to talk to the ones in Antioch, the Presidio of Antioch. OK, so here we go.

And on the next Sabbath day, so the first Sabbath day occurred Many believed, and they were excited. In fact, actually, it says here, just before this verse, in 43, it says, Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who were speaking to them, and were urging them to continue in the grace of God. So they were urged by those believers, the new believers, to, I want to hear more about what's happening here. So on the next Sabbath day, So here's what happened. Everybody in that town hears about this, including the Jews. On the next Sabbath day, almost the entire city gathered together to hear the word of God.

You can imagine this. Imagine if the entire city of Denver, well it would be impossible here, showed up at Holly Hills because we had Andrew speaking from Telluride. I mean, you know, and they weren't friendly either. So here's what they did. So here's the persecution is going to happen here.

Then the Jews, having seen the crowds, they said, Oh, wonderful, brother. That's fantastic. You're getting all these crowds. I'm really excited for you. No, became filled with jealousy. and went to speaking against them the things which were being spoken by Paul, saying slanderous and evil things." And I think, boy, in today's world, we see this in spades, if you will. We see this over and over again, where people just say outrageous things just to make their point.

So verse 46, having become bold, Paul and Barna said, to you it was required in the nature of the case for the word of God to be spoken first. So we say, we come to the Jews first, then we're going to go to the Gentiles. Since now you have thrust it away, the idea you put yourself, I don't want this, reminds me of when Christ, we will not have this man rule over us. They thrust it away from yourselves and are judging yourselves not worthy of life eternal. Behold, we are turning ourselves to the Gentiles. So they jumped down a few verses to verse 50. But the Jews urged on the devout women, those of high position and leading the men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and threw them out of their boundaries.

So here's my point. If you look at the ones who believed, and you kind of think of the situation, they're there. They're new believers. And all of a sudden, this uproar occurs. And they get rid of Paul and Barnabas. Don't you think that anybody that hung out with them or wanted to be with them, you think they're going to get a good reception?

So it doesn't exactly say that. And I realize I'm kind of on shaky ground here possibly. But I think that you can infer from that that these new believers in Galatia there, in this city, were suffering as well because of Paul and Barnabas' persecution. And then there's one other passage that I found, which kind of makes a summary statement. And this happens in Derbe, which is another city there in Galatia.

And it says, after they had preached the gospel to the city, Derbe, and had made disciples, they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. And I kind of take that as just kind of a little summary statement saying, there's going to be tribulations in your believer's life. So now I just want to kind of review quickly.

Scripture teaches that all believers will suffer. So I have a few verses that talk to that in Romans 8. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him. Philippians 129, and you can find many more.

If you have a mind to, look up suffering. I was going to say Google suffering, you can do that too. But if you look in your Bible, you'll find all kinds. Look in your Bible, if you have a computer Bible, and look up suffering and things like that. So Philippians 129. For to you it has been granted, for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake." So we're suffering for Christ's sake.

And then 1 Peter 4.19, Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right. But to the point of the verses, but the believer's suffering is not in vain. But how do we know that? How do we know that our suffering isn't in vain? Scripture has a really cool verse, and I like to read the full part of that verse. Let's go back to 1 Thessalonians 3. I'll start in verse 1. It says, Therefore, when we can endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone.

And we sent Timothy our brother, God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith." So Timothy was going to strengthen and encourage them as to your faith. So that no one would disturb you with these afflictions. Actually the word affliction is the idea of pressure. It's a pressing in. It's a pressure.

For you yourselves know that we have been destined or appointed for these things. For indeed, when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction. And so it came to pass, as you know." So suffering is something that God has appointed for every single believer.

That doesn't, you know, say, wow. You get a little gun-shy there. But then another cool verse is, But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. So that's part of suffering. Sometimes you feel, well, maybe I'm not that good a Christian. My faith isn't as strong.

I've done this, I've done that. So you feel ashamed that you're suffering for whatever it might be. And maybe you feel ashamed that you've been part of that. You've actually caused the suffering. Maybe you have sinned or maybe you have people that have sinned and their sin has affected you. So you say, wow, you know. But in terms of the believer, I think scripture teaches abundantly that in our suffering we can count upon the fact that if we confess, if there's sin involved, we confess that sin, that God will use it. He will use it for our benefit.

So now we go to verse 5. So I like to use the Wiest translation for the first part of this. It says, The One who is constantly supplying the Spirit to you in bountiful measures and constantly working miracles among you. So I think that we see two parts here.

Paul will now draw a conclusion. He's going to talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit here. And he's going to say, and the One here I believe is really the Godhead. I'll show you a little bit later why I think that. The One is doing two things in this verse. He's supplying you with the Spirit. and working miracles among you."

So that's a pretty amazing statement here. So let's look at this. Supplying the Spirit. It's in the present tense. So it says he's continually supplying the Spirit to you. Continually doing that. Continuous action. Supply is the idea to supply fully, abundantly. The present continuous tense speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit in all his ministries to the believer, individually and collectively.

The reason for this is that we have responded by faith to God's grace. It's our faith to God's grace. So, I think to understand this abundance, you think, well, that's a pretty neat, supplying the Spirit to you. Sounds pretty cool. So what does that mean?

So I looked at, I wanted to look at, there are 22 In fact, I have the, I was going to ask Sue to make a, if you're interested, I think we either, it might be on the website, we have a Brother Howell's list of the 22 ministries of the Holy Spirit. I'm just going to cover four of them in detail and just read the rest, but it's pretty amazing. The ministry of the Holy Spirit to the believer is just incredible. So I'm just going to cover four in detail. The first one is, The Spirit dwells in believers. And that comes from John 14, 16. There are other verses that support this.

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever. That is, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive. But you know Him, because He abides with you and will be in you. This is when the Lord was speaking about He's leaving and the Holy Spirit's coming. That's why it says He will be in you. Okay, then number six is the Spirit transforms believers. And this one, boy, we have whole classes on this just about.

2 Corinthians 3.18, But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, justice from the Lord, the Spirit. So that's 1.6. Now let's go to 13. The Spirit frees believers.

Romans 8.2, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

I'm just reading these, there's a lot more we could say. Then actually one of my favorites, I did a whole message on this guy, this is just a really fabulous one. Actually when I was preparing for this, people often ask, you know, why pray? Well, this verse gives you a good reason why you should pray. I won't tell you yet, but why don't you just think about it. Why does this verse give you a good reason why you should pray? I won't tell you, but just think about it.

So Romans 8.26. I kind of chopped some parts out. 8.26.

The Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray. Just kind of a caveat. The original says we do not know the what of what we should pray for. We don't know the exact thing we should pray for many times. We don't know whether many times should we pray it this way or that way. Should we pray that a person...

Some things we do know. We know for salvation, right? There's no question. We pray for a person's salvation. But in some cases we're uncertain of that. But the Spirit himself intercedes with us with groanings too deep for words. He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So he knows the mind of the Father, the Spirit does, and he knows our mind. So he understands the situation.

So this is a cool reason why you want to pray more. You want the Holy Spirit to be interceding for you, right? So pray more, and the Holy Spirit gets a chance to intercede more. Isn't that cool? I'm excited about that. So now, here's the list. Here we go.

The Spirit dwells in the believers. The Spirit gives the believers access to the Father. The Spirit has fellowship with believers. All the believers are plural. The Spirit teaches believers. The Spirit reveals the glory of Christ to believers. The Spirit transforms believers. And on this hand, if you want one, we can make copies, and they have all the verses to back it up to.

7. The Spirit manifests His fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, through believers.

8. The Spirit gifts every believer for ministry.

9. The Spirit empowers believers.

10. The Spirit fills believers.

11. The Spirit desires against believers' sin nature or the flesh.

12. The Spirit controls the mind of the new man.

13. The Spirit frees the believers.

14. The Spirit guides believers.

15. The Spirit intercedes in prayer for the believer.

16. The Spirit is God's guarantee of His promise to the believer.

17. The Spirit is the agent in the believer's sanctification.

18. The Spirit assures believers.

19. The Spirit glorifies Christ through believers. The spirit can be grieved and quenched by the believer. The spirit is a means by which a believer walks. The spirit perfects or matures believers. So pretty amazing. So that one phrase about the, so let's go back to our verse here. So we had, so then, He who provides the Spirit, and it talks about that. So the second part is about working miracles among you.

And I found this to be a toughie. Because you know, in New Testament times, like in Acts, there are plenty of miracles. We see plenty of miracles. And unfortunately, there's some group of believers that they want to have those miracles reproduced in their church. And I think that's the wrong path. So the question is, what kind of miracles should we expect as believers in the Christian life?

So it's actually working miracles among you. And it's present tense, continuous action. And it's literally the works of power, dunamis, from the word dynamite. That's our word we have for dynamite. So Romans 1.16, speaking to this idea, and this is a key verse, I think, in terms of understanding the present day working of miracles.

It says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God, or the dunamis, or the working of power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So I believe, and let's see, do I have something else I want to say before that? And it's among the body of Christ, So let's just read what Constable said, I thought it was really good. He continues to do miracles in and through the believers, even today, not the least of which is a miracle of regeneration. I kind of thought Romans 1 16 kind of spoke to that, for it talks about the gospel. And the gospel, believing the gospel is a miraculous thing, because it talks about it's a power of God for salvation. It's a doomless power of God for salvation.

So I think we don't have to look any further than the fact that Men and women and children are being saved. They respond to the gospel. And that's a miraculous event. That's a life-changing event. So I think there are miraculous people being healed, people being cured of diseases. But the miraculous thing of people being saved is pretty evident in today's world.

Do they do it by the works of the law or by the hearing with faith? So I like this verse, therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. How did we receive Christ Jesus the Lord? We received him by faith, by the hearing by faith. So we're to walk in him by faith.

All right, so my final thoughts. Actually, I thought I picked this picture. It looks like that lady is Man, it might be Kansas she's looking out over. There's no mountains in that picture. So I said, hey, I've got to pick a better picture than that. She's looking out over Kansas, or whatever it is. Anyway, OK. We've got to have some mountains in there. OK, so four thoughts I had that kind of finish off here.

The Christian life is to be lived by means of the hearing of faith. That's Paul's message through those first five verses. The Christian life is to be lived by the means of faith. Second point of those five verses, I think, but the believer will suffer. He's going to suffer. That's part and parcel of the Christian life. And he shouldn't be surprised by that.

And thirdly, but the believer is not suffering in vain, but has been appointed to these trials or to these sufferings. That's the third point. And then the fourth point, the gospel is a power of God, the dunamis power of God for salvation. And that's the miracles I think we're seeing in this day and age. So let's close. We thank you, Father. Thank you so much for your word, Father. Thank you for the pure spirit working in our lives. Thank you for the many ministries that we see described in scripture. We ask in his name, amen.