Live video and notes for my message at Central Church of Christ in Stockton, CA for October 17, 2021.

The text was Galatians 3:1-6. Zecharaiah 4:6 and Philippians 1:6 were also read during worship.

The live video link is below. Sermon notes are below that.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Professor Paul discovers a classroom in chaos

You’ve just have to love how our passage in Galatians began today: 

You foolish Galatians! … Are you so foolish?

I love how J.B. Phillips has it in his paraphrase: O you dear idiots of Galatia … surely you can’t be so idiotic?

The Apostle Paul was like one of those school teachers you see in the old movies. Where they walk in to find the classroom in total chaos—all the kids running around, shouting, fighting, throwing paper wads and shooting staples across the room.

The Christians in Galatia had turned into a mob of unruly middle-schoolers. Only the classroom they were destroying was their own faith. And it wasn’t their schoolbooks and homework they were ripping apart to make spit-wads out of—it was the very Gospel of Christ that had saved them.

It seems some older kids on the school bus had told them the Gospel wasn’t enough. Faith in Christ was not enough to save them. His finished work on the cross was somehow incomplete. 

They told the younger Galatian Christians: You need Jesus, absolutely. But you also need to go back to the old ways of the Law of Moses. Dudes, you need to get circumcised, and you all need to go back to the food laws and the ceremonies of the Old Testament.

To sum it up, those sophomores who were still riding the school bus told the young Galatians: Yes, Jesus paid it all. But you have to go through a pay wall to get to Him. And we’ll show you how …

I think we’ve all had experiences like that when we were young, haven’t we? Some older kid shares some impressive secret about how the world really works, or gives you some tip to get ahead in life. 

You wanted to believe them, because they seemed so hip, so much more experienced than you. But when you follow their advice, it backfires. And you find out they weren’t so smart after all.

Okay, that’s basically what had happened spiritually to the Galatians.

You see, in their own minds, the Galatians thought they were in study hall. They were buckling down, applying themselves to their salvation, learning all kinds of new Bible-y stuff.

But that’s not what Professor Paul saw when he looked in on his classroom. He saw a bunch of rowdy children tearing the room apart. Some of them were about to throw a desk through the window, and they were all going to run away if no one stopped them.

Paul had to restore some order and discipline to his classroom of faith. And so he bellowed those shocking words: You foolish Galatians! Are you so foolish?

Paul concludes his students must be under a curse

But Paul also didn’t believe that the Galatians had gotten this way all on their own. That’s why he asked them: Who has bewitched you?

I’m a big Harry Potter fan, so when Paul asks: Who has bewitched you?, it reminds me of the Imperius curse.

For the uninitiated, the Imperius is one of the three “Unforgivable Curses.” It will get you a life sentence in wizard prison. A wizard or witch can use it to place a victim completely under their control.

It steals their personality and their will. Under the Imperius curse, you could make somebody jump out a window, or run into traffic.

Listen—when it comes to faith, when it comes to salvation, turning someone’s eyes away from Christ’s finished work, and teaching them to put any confidence in their own efforts—that’s just as potentially deadly as the Imperius curse. And just as unforgivable.

Paul was carefully choosing his words to break the spell that had been cast over his students. Before your very eyes, he reminded them, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

We know Christ was crucified in Jerusalem, not Galatia. So what did Paul mean? He meant: I did not preach Christ with big, confusing words. I taught you the Gospel of Christ so plainly, you might as well have been there at the cross. You embraced Him with such faith! The only way I could have made it even plainer was to staple it to your foreheads in all caps: It is finished! He suffered in our place to satisfy all of God’s righteousness. You can’t add anything to it.

Paul just couldn’t believe it. There’s so much love and grace and mercy and godly wisdom flowing from the cross of Christ. Why would anyone ever turn their eyes away from it, and put their confidence in their own efforts and prayers and feelings—anything other than the simple Gospel of Christ? 

The only reason Paul could imagine anyone doing that was witchcraft. Anything that leads a person to look for their salvation in their own works has got to be an evil spell.  

Paul drops a quiz on ’em to break the spell

One quick and dirty way to break a spell that’s fallen over an unruly classroom is to give them a pop quiz. And that’s exactly what Paul did in our passage today.

Paul said: Okay class: Pop quiz!And then he just bombarded them with questions about their salvation.

Questions that have only one right answer.

Did you receive the Spirit by works or by faith?

So here’s Question 1 of Paul’s salvation pop quiz.

Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? … again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?

His question has to do with how people receive the Holy Spirit, and so begin the Christian life. What part did you play in that?

There’s really only one right answer. By His grace, God poured out His Holy Spirit on us even while we are disobedient. So that we may turn to Him in faith, and be renewed.

The Bible tells us this over and over again. 

In Joel 2:28, God says: I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity. Not just on one people, Israel. But on Gentiles—non-Jews. Like the Galatians.

Why does God pour out His Spirit on people from every nation? To enable them to turn to Him in faith, and begin to obey Him. God says: I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live … Then you will know that I am the Lord, Ezekiel 37:14.

God pours His Spirit out on people who do not know Him, so that they may come to know Him.

Indeed, we cannot even begin to obey God’s Law until He puts His Spirit in us. Romans 8:7 says that the mind governed by the flesh—our mindset before God sends us His Spirit—is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

But listen to God’s promise, Ezek. 36:26-27: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

God pours out His Holy Spirit to give us a new heart—a heart that’s tender to Him, and wants to obey His Law. Only the Holy Spirit can do that to us.

So Paul’s question is basically: Did you receive the Holy Spirit because of your obedience? And the answer is obviously: No!

And Paul builds on the question. While I was with you, the Holy Spirit worked great miracles among you—on top of the miracle of renewing your cold, dead, stony hearts! Again, tell me class: Did all that happen because you obeyed the Law, or was it a gift of God that came by grace through faith?

And the only correct answer was what? By faith. The Holy Spirit works through people who are declared righteous by faith alone. Not through self-righteous people.

This is Gospel 101, church. Martin Luther explained it beautifully when he said: The Law never brings the Holy Spirit, therefore it does not justify us. In other words, the Law never declares us righteous in God’s sight. 

He continues: The Law does not justify us, because it only teaches us what we ought to do. But the Gospel does bring the Holy Spirit, because it teaches us what we ought to receive.

By the Gospel, we receive not only forgiveness of our past sins; our future sins are also covered, indeed—our whole lives are covered by Christ’s righteousness. We receive the Holy Spirit, who makes us holy—who is Christ dwelling in us.

And we receive all that—the Spirit; fresh forgiveness; and a righteousness that is not our own—by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

That’s the only correct answer.

Have you suffered so much for nothing?

A Second Question, this is from v4: Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?

You could also translate this question as, Have you suffered so much in vain?

Paul’s saying: I’ve seen you struggle—I’ve pastored and counseled and prayed with you, when we both ended up ugly crying—because your flesh was fighting so hard against the Spirit!

You have literally experienced Christ holding on to you when your faith was too weak to cling to Him! 

And are you really going to throw all that away now? All your experience of the Holy Spirit’s work in your life? To what—try and build your own stairway to heaven, by your own efforts? 

Remember, those sophomore kids on the school bus had convinced these young Galatians they needed to get circumcised to stay right with God. 

They’d basically told them that salvation by grace through faith alone is just “entry-level” Gospel. But if you really wanted to “get promoted,” you had better start keeping the Law. You get in by grace through faith, but that’s not how you stay in. You gotta earn your quota.

Paul’s response to that is essentially a rhetorical question: Really—you think if you don’t get circumcised, Jesus will loosen His grip on you?

He’s asking them to remember everything they’ve experienced so far in Christ—the struggles, the comfort in the midst of struggles, the breakthroughs. Was it all for nothing? Paul certainly hoped not!

Can you finish the work God started?

So we’re about to hear a third question from Paul’s pop quiz.

But I hope by now you see—these questions Paul asked the Galatians are also questions we should be asking ourselves.

Usually, when Christians examine themselves—we ask: Am I doing enough? Am I doing it well enough, consistently enough, often enough?

And yes, there are absolutely times we need to examine our own fruit. We’ll talk about that when we get farther along into Galatians. 

But so often, we want to judge how our faith is, by looking at its results according to the flesh—by outward and visible signs.

I think that’s why it was so tempting for the Galatians to try to prove their faith by being circumcised and other outward works of the Law. Those were visible results they could see and keep track of.

Christians actually do have outward and visible signs of the grace of God in our lives, that God has given us to strengthen our faith. And those are baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Are those not enough? If they’re not—that may be a problem we need to have some serious conversations about. 

The most important question we need to be asking ourselves is: Is my salvation on God or on me? 

And like the questions Paul asked the Galatians—there’s only one right answer. And it isn’t both.Salvation belongs to the Lord, Psalm 3:8.

You don’t get in to salvation by grace through faith alone, but then stay in by what you do—by earning a quota. 

Law says: Do it! Gospel says: It is done!

So, do you get in by Gospel, but stay in by Law?

That’s exactly what the Third Question from Professor Paul’s Pop Quiz is asking us. 

Gal. 3:3: After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?

In other words: God saved you by His Spirit, by His power. Are you going to try and finish God’s job for Him in your own power, by your own efforts?

And the only correct answer is, No, I am not. Why not?

Because the Bible tells us so.

Remember: Salvation belongs to the Lord, Psalm 3:8. If you could do it, if you could make contributions to your salvation like you pay into social security—God would have done it that way. But He didn’t.

Cribbing from Philippians: God will complete what He began in you

What did we hear in Philippians 1:6 today? The same Apostle Paul who wrote Galatians also said: I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Paul was sure that God, who first saved you by His grace, through faith, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit; will completely save you the same way—by grace, through faith, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit.

The Lord will finish what He started. I’m confident of that. I want you to be confident about that, too. For yourselves. That God is going to complete the good work He began in you—personally.

Listen, there’s always going to be big kids on the school bus who are going to give you bad advice that sounds really good when you hear it.

For the Galatians, it was a group of Jewish Christians who’s been in the faith a few years longer, trying to get them to be circumcised. 

And I almost understand where they were coming from. 

Circumcision was part of God’s Law—it was the sign and seal of God’s covenant with His people. 

These older kids on the bus had a high regard for scripture as the word of God, and they understood that God’s Law should still guide Christian behavior. They didn’t want to see God’s commandments overlooked, or broken.

And today, you still have a lot of Christians who live by a long list of dos and don’ts, and they’ll try and get you to do the same. Now, a lot of those dos and don’ts are biblical. But a lot of them aren’t—they’re just a bunch of stuff those people have decided seems more godly, or less godly.

Again—I understand where they’re coming from. They understand that faith in Christ should lead to a transformed life.

Not only that, we’re are born hardwired with the work of God’s Law written on our hearts. That’s what your conscience is. 

But your conscience is one of the first places Satan attacks a believer—by constantly reminding you of your sins and shortcomings. Of all the quotas you haven’t met.

That’s exactly why God doesn’t allow one Christian to bind their own conscience on another believer. 

The sophomores who are still riding the bus are always going to steer you the same way, and it’s away from the Gospel. They’re going to have you living as though grace is something you have to earn. You’re going to end up trying to live up to a bunch of impossible expectations.

Listen, as Christians we should absolutely be stirring one another up to love and good works, as it says in Hebrews 10:24. We should always be encouraging one another in loving God and loving each other and loving the people God brings to us. We should be looking for opportunities to glorify God, and enjoy God.

But that’s not what saves us. The Gospel is not a to-do list. Gospel means good news, right? Now if I come up to you and say: I have good news for you: Love God and love your neighbor!—you’re going to say, Well, that’s important, that’s good advice, but it isn’t good news. [1]

Paul’s message—scripture’s message, really—is that the Gospel is not just about getting saved; it’s about staying saved.

The same grace that saved you in the first place, will keep you and sustain you until the end.

So when the big kids on the bus ever get you worried about performance or promotions or meeting quotas—the Gospel says: Jesus already met all the quotas. I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved by His performance—not my own.

And that’s really what Professor Paul’s Pop Quiz today was really meant to remind us of. Whenever you feel anxious about your performance in the Christian life, just remember: After beginning by the Spirit, will you now finish by the flesh?

And there’s only one correct answer: No! Because I am sure of this: that God, who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Christ.

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[1] I borrowed this illustration from J. Gresham Machen. The original quote: “‘Good news’ is never in the imperative mood; a ‘gospel’ cannot possibly consist in directions as to a way of life, or in a complex of worthy ideals. If a man comes running and says in a tone of great eagerness, ‘I have news for you,” and you ask him what it is, he does not say: ‘Here is the piece of news I have for you: Keep the commandments of God; love God and your neighbor.’ Such exhortations are indeed exceedingly important and valuable, but they are certainly not news. News consists always, not in exhortations or commands, but in information about facts; a ‘gospel’ is always in the indicative mood.”