PERCEPTION DECEPTION (GAL 3:1-5)

SERIES: FREE AT LAST, PART 8

GCEFC: NOVEMBER 15, 2009

INTRODUCTION

1. Two things I’ve enjoyed nearly my entire life are puzzlers and riddles.

2. When we hear a riddle or puzzler and its answer, it’s a chance to laugh at ourselves, because we missed what we feel we should have gotten.

3. But they’re also a reminder of how easily we can be fooled and misled.

4. So if you’ll allow me a couple minutes, I’d like to share a few simple puzzlers with you. If you’ve heard these before, try not to shout out the answer, okay?

5. I share these because they’re examples of how we can get deceived into thinking what diverts us from the obvious.

6. In our passage today, we see that the Galatians were also fooled into thinking something that diverted them from the obvious. But the issue was much more significant.

A. WERE YOU BEWITCHED?

1. Paul had come to Galatia. He’d preached the gospel of grace to the Galatians. He had clearly announced that Christ had paid the penalty for human sin by dying on the cross.

2. The Galatians believed what they heard. They trusted Christ as Savior. They received the Holy Spirit. They began their spiritual journey by grace through faith.

3. But now they’ve been deceived into believing that their spiritual journey will continue only through their good works. Only by adhering to the Mosaic law and ceremony.

4. Paul is disappointed. He’s angry. He’s disheartened. And he’s shocked. And he minces no words when he says in C3/V1: You foolish Galatians!

5. Now, he’s not calling them stupid. This is not the word moros from which we get our English word moron. It’s not the word meaning mentally deficient, stupid, or moronic.

6. It’s the word for mental laziness. To be spiritually dull. It’s used of one who has the capacity to think clearly, but fails to use that capacity.

7. Paul is so taken aback by what’s happened that it’s as if some sorcerer has cast a spell on them. He says: Who has bewitched you?

a. This is an interesting word. It has the idea of the old Latin word from which we get our word fascinate. Which means to attract and hold by a unique power.

b. The word in V1 means to allure, to cast a spell on, to charm.

c. It also has the ancient idea of the evil eye. The ancients believed that certain people had the power of an evil eye, where they could simply look at you, and you’d come under their power and control.

d. Paul didn’t believe in any of this and he wasn’t saying that the Galatians had actually been put under some spell or been charmed by a sorcerer.

e. He was saying it was AS IF they had been. Their transformation was so profound and so quick under these false teachers—it was as if they had been bewitched.

8. But why the strong language? Paul continues: Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

9. Another interesting word is used here. The word translated portrayed was used of a message or announcement that was publicly placarded.

a. On television and in the newspaper you’ve seen people holding up placards at political rallies or demonstrations. We also see them at political conventions.

b. They’re large signs that give a short statement of an important message. Maybe a slogan or some key words.

c. Paul is saying that Jesus’ crucifixion…his death for our sins...his sacrifice…was publicly placarded.

d. It was public. It was obvious. It was clear. You couldn’t possibly miss it. It was there for all to see and for all to know. When Paul testified before King Agrippa, he said that these things were not done in a corner.

e. Yet somehow—they had missed the point. The point that the Christian life is not about what you are doing for God. It’s about what God has done for you.

f. Yet here you are making a mockery of what Jesus has done. He died so you can be free from the burden of the law.

g. But now you are voluntarily placing yourself back under that burden. Has somebody bewitched you? Has a spell been cast on you? This is so foolish it looks like sorcery!

B. HOW DID YOU RECEIVE THE SPIRIT?

1. Then Paul asks 4 rhetorical questions. Rhetorical because he already knows the answers. In fact the Galatians know the answers too. But they’re asked to emphasize the truth.

2. The first question he asks the Galatian believers is in V2: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?

3. Paul assumes that the Galatians were believers because he says they received the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit’s indwelling is confirmation of true saving faith.

4. ROM 8 makes this clear: You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

5. The question is not whether they have received the Spirit, but how they received the Spirit? Was it by observing the law? Or was it by believing what they heard?

6. We know that we receive the Spirit of God when we believe the gospel. We have clear evidence of this in the Book of Acts:

a. ACTS 10:44 at the home of the Gentile Cornelius, it says: While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

b. When we were in our series on the Book of Acts, we saw that those who received the Spirit spoke in tongues as confirmation that they had.

c. The Spirit’s indwelling of believers is invisible. And no one expected that Gentiles could even be true believers—much less recipients of the Holy Spirit.

d. So when they believed and the Spirit indwelled them, they spoke in tongues—a visible confirmation of an otherwise invisible and undetectable event.

7. The Galatians had received the Spirit too—though not as dramatic as the initial time in the Book of Acts. But it was no less real.

8. And just as the Spirit had come upon believers as a result of their faith originally. The Spirit had come upon the Galatian believers as a result of their faith too!

9. The law says do—the gospel says DONE. The law requires works of human merit—the gospel requires faith in JESUS' MERIT.

10. The law requires us to obey—the Gospel bids us believe. Law and grace are not different aspects of the same truth. They’re contradictory and mutually exclusive.

11. One is right, one is wrong. One is truth, one is a lie. One saves, one condemns. To add to the grace of God is to nullify it.

12. The Galatians had received the Spirit of God as a result of their belief, as a result of their faith. Not as a result of observing the law. The same as with all true believers.

C. WHAT ABOUT AFTER THE BELIEVED?

1. Okay, so the Galatians BEGAN their Christian life as a result of their faith and belief. But what about from that point ON?

2. Question 2: Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

3. So our justification is through faith alone. But what about our sanctification? That must be by works, right?

4. The false teachers were arguing that faith in Christ is simply entry level Christianity. It only gets you in the door. But spiritual growth requires law keeping and good works.

5. But Paul’s point, which he will make more emphatically later in the letter, is that the Christian life is about grace and faith from start to finish.

6. What begins by faith progresses by faith and finishes by faith. For example:

a. PHIL 1:6: He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…

b. PHIL 2:13: For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

c. EPH 3:20: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…

7. If our righteousness is insufficient to justify us to begin with. Then how on earth will our insufficient righteousness transform us?

8. It must all be of grace. In fact it is all of grace. It’s grace that prompted our salvation. It’s grace that provided our salvation. It’s grace that transforms us after our salvation. It’s grace from start to finish.

D. HAVE YOU SUFFERED FOR NOTHING?

1. Then in V4 Paul asks: Have you suffered so much for nothing? So what’s this about?

2. Well as new believers in Galatia, they would have come under persecution for their faith just as Paul did.

3. In fact, Paul even says in ACTS 14: We must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.

4. But if the Galatians returned to the law as the foundation of their faith—then they had suffered for no purpose.

5. Simply because it was their renouncement of the Law of Moses that had led to their persecution in the first place. If they had stayed with the Law all along, they could have avoided the persecution they suffered for abandoning it.

6. Yet, we see that Paul remains hopeful in the same verse when he says: if it really was for nothing? He still has hope that the Galatians will get it and come around.

E. WHY DOES GOD WORK SO MIGHTILY

1. The last question Paul asks is in V5: Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

2. Again, the question is rhetorical. Paul already knows the answer.

3. Back in ACTS 14, in is a description of Paul’s ministry in Galatia, we read: So Paul and Barnabus spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.

4. God confirmed the message of his grace through miracles and signs. He didn’t confirm the observance of the law by miracles.

5. God did miracles and gave his Spirit not in response to their works of the law—but in response to their believing what they heard.

6. God gives us the Spirit as a result of our belief in the gospel we’ve heard. Then he works in us as believers through his Spirit.

a. We’re born of the Spirit.

b. We’re baptized by the Spirit.

c. We’re sealed by the Spirit.

d. We’re indwelt by the Spirit.

e. We’re convicted of sin by the Spirit.

f. We’re given spiritual enlightenment by the Spirit.

g. We’re given the Spirit as a guarantee of our redemption.

F. SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US?

1. So is there anything we learn from this passage besides the fact that our spiritual life begins, progresses, and finishes by grace through faith?

2. There are a couple of other things we should note. First of all—beware of gospel add-ons. The gospel doesn’t need any adornments. It only needs our commitment.

3. There are Christians out there who believe there is more to the Christian life than we may realize. They’re right. But not the way they think they are.

a. 2 PET 1:3 says that: God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us…

b. Beware of people who tell you that you need a particular thing in order to experience God’s fullness in your life.

c. That without this thing, whatever they’ve determined it is—you’ll miss God’s best. Fact is, you don’t need any more of the Spirit—the Spirit needs more of you.

d. I suspect this was what Paul was talking about when he wrote to the Philippians: Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

e. Let’s not weary ourselves looking for that elusive missing thing. Let’s just commit ourselves to what God has already given us that needs using and developing.

4. And…let’s beware of spiritual deception. Let’s be careful that we aren’t bewitched ourselves by what may sound like good news, but is really bad news.

a. The gospel is very simple. And very easy to distort into something it’s not. It’s done all the time in the most unsuspected places and by the most unsuspected people.

b. The great band leader and musician Duke Ellington used to say about music: If it sounds good, it is good. Which may be true when it comes to music.

c. But be assured that this proverb doesn’t apply to biblical truth. Just because it sounds good doesn’t mean it is good.

d. This is what got the Galatians into trouble. It can get us in trouble too! Paul warned us of this tendency when he wrote: For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

e. Often what sounds good is a blatant contradiction of what the Word of God teaches. The Word of God is the filter through which we run all philosophies and opinions.

f. Paul says it well in a different letter: Test everything. Hold on to the good.