“The Promise of the Spirit”

A sermon based upon Galatians 3: 1-14

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

Sunday July 19th, 2020 (Growing In Grace)

Back in 2014, 17 year old Massachusetts teenager Michelle Carter, convinced her 18 year old boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to get back in his truck and to take his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning.  What made this case so unusual,  and cruel, is that she did by texting, knew where he was, told him to get back in the truck even though he said ‘he didn’t want to die’, and she did not notify anyone with any kind of call for help.  Then, this winter, after serving 3 years for involuntary manslaughter, Michell was released for being a model prisoner.

Out this whole terrible ordeal, came a new law in the state of Massachusetts, known as Conrad’s Law.   This new law allows prosecutors to charge anyone who encourages, coerces, or manipulates another person into committing or attempting suicide, even if the victim previously considered it, or attempted it. The point of this law, at least as I see it, is to say that ‘words’ can be weapons.  Even words which aren’t texted, or written, but are alive with the ‘spirit’ of intent, can be deadly, and criminal too.

 

It’s strange, isn’t it, that there is a ‘spiritual’ power in words, which can have both emotional and physical results.  Most of the time we don’t even notice the realm of the ‘spiritual’.   We tend to focus only on what we can see, what is physical, material, and visible.  This is naturally what we notice, until something tragic happens.  When Michelle convinced and even coerced her boyfriend into taking his life, we see that there is more going on.  Why didn’t she call someone for help?  In court proceedings, we’re told that she was encouraging him because he was ‘tortured’ by his life, and she told explained that in death the pain would be over.  With her words, from the ideas in her words, and her beliefs too, she convinced Conrad death would be better than life.

Sometimes, we forget that there are real, but invisible ‘powers’ in our beliefs, our ideas and of course, in our words, whether spoken, written or texted.  This power is often intensified by our relationships.   We don’t always realize this ‘power’, because it belongs to a very different realm of reality that remains mostly hidden to us; which we name as the realm of the spirit and the spiritual.   The Bible understands this reality and constantly reminds us of it.   The Bible speaks not only of these ‘spiritual powers’ as ‘elemental’, but sometimes evil too.  But here, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul reminds his readers, and reminds us too, that God’s is the Holy Spirit that can redeem, save, heal, and deliver us from the most negative spiritual power of sin (Gal. 3:22).   And at both the beginning, and at the end of our text from Galatians, Paul speaks of the positive ‘promise of the Spirit’ that comes to us, resides in us, ‘through faith’ in Jesus Christ (3:14).   What was going on in Galatia is still very important for ‘growing in the knowledge and the grace of Jesus Christ’ and for understanding God’s work of ‘sanctification’ in us today.  For if we ‘grow in the grace’ of the Lord Jesus and we grow in the knowledge of God, we must grow spiritually, allowing God’s Spirit to ‘dwell’ in us and to ‘rule’ in our hearts.   In other words, ‘growth’ in ‘faith’, as Paul describes it in our text, means growing in the ‘promise of the Spirit’.

DID YOU RECEIVE THE SPIRIT...? (v. 2).

There was a ‘spiritual’ struggle going on in Galatia.   As you can see there’s some very strong language here.  It could have been a good plot for a Movie.   Paul, who was God’s new missionary to the Gentiles, was having to stand up against Peter, one of Jesus’ most important disciples.  

The problem was that Peter had lost his vision of the Spirit’s promise.  Judaizers had convinced him to renege on forcing ‘circumcision’ upon Gentiles as a legalistic requirement for God’s salvation in Jesus Christ.  God had spoken to Peter in a vision, if you recall, as he was told by God’s Spirit in a dream that God was ‘no respecter of persons’ and that Gentiles could come to God’s table by grace, not works of the law.   

When group of Judaizers came to Galatia, wanting to take the church at Galatia backward, forcing this ancient, old ‘legalistic’ requirement upon them, Paul saw it as contrary to the work of God’s spiritual promise which was now being given to the whole world through faith in Jesus Christ.  Had the Judaizer’s won, Christianity would have never risen above being a small, restricting, Jewish sect.  It would have gone ‘dead in the waters’ of the Mediterranean.   Paul understood then, just as we must understand now, that with the promise of the Spirit, Christian faith eventually dies a slow, but terrible death.   The way of the Spirit is always ‘forward’.  When we follow Jesus we are moving ahead; and there is no looking back.

A good example of what was happening in Galatia can be compared to a famous story about the tight-rope walker, Charles Blondin (1824-97).  Blondin, Frenchman, set up a rope across Niagara Falls and walked across several times.  He was so confident in his abilities that he walked it both forward and backward, performing various tricks along the way, like sitting on a small stool and eating a meal.  But the most famous trick was when he asked for a volunteer to be carried over on his back.  In what must have been one of the most supreme acts of trust ever placed in a human being by another, a brave, or perhaps foolish man stepped forward, and was carried over on the great tigh-rope walker’s shoulders.

Now suppose about half-way across, that volunteer had said to Blondin,  “Look here, this is all very interesting, but I really don’t trust you any more.  I think I’d better do the rest by myself.  Let me down and I’ll walk from here without you.’   Can you imagine the retort and reprimand he got from the ‘master’ walker?   Can you imagine the fear he would have put into the eyes of his friends and family?  Had he lost his mind?  How could he ever walk the rest of the way by himself?

This is exactly the reaction Paul has on hearing that his beloved Galatians are thinking of getting circumcised.  Have they lost their minds, even their faith in Jesus Christ?  This is why he calls them ‘mindless’ or ‘bewitched’!  Are they thinking straight?  Having begun this journey of faith in the Spirit, are they now going to start walking in the flesh?   Having begun this way by faith, or they going to start trying to keep the law, which is something even the Jews could never do?  How foolish?

Do we still have a ‘dog in this fight’?  Can we too be a people who start out ‘walking in the Spirit’, but for some reason or other, feel a need to turn back to ‘legalistic’, black and white, simplistic and elemental tendencies of rules, laws, and regulations?   Years ago, when in college, I read a book entitled, “Why Conservative Churches Are Growing”.  Dean Kelly, the author explained that churches that give simple answers to complex problems and questions often grow faster.  Most people like to have simple answers.  Many people like to be told ‘how’ to live!  Living in the ‘grey’ areas of life is hard work.  I once heard of a church that grew very large, after they pastor stood up and made them a clear list of how they should live their everyday life; what to eat, what to wear, and what say, and what to believe.   He put everything in black and white and expected everyone to sign on the dotted line.  You’d think Americans born in liberty, would reject such a thing.  Today, I hear they don’t have hardly any extra seats.

Legalism still works.  If you will do this, and if you will jump through this ‘hoop’ you will be saved.   There is, of course, always some truth to it.   Moses did give Israel the law.  God did call Israel to be a ‘priestly nation’ and to be a ‘light to the nations’.  Abraham, the Father of all Faith was circumcised as his promise to God, and God’s promise to bless him, and the world.  The law of God was a good, saving, healing law.  And ‘legalism’ can still work.  But it works only for a few.  And even these ‘few’ can never keep all of the law.  And in the end, Paul says, the law not only limits God’s grace, but the law, even God’s good law will prove to more of a ‘curse’ than a blessing.   This is not because of the law being bad, but it’s because of the power of sin.   In the end, the law is very good at bringing out the truth of our sin, but it’s not very good at helping us in our struggle with sin.   But this is getting a little ahead of Paul’s argument.   Let’s get back to ‘why’ Paul believe the way of the Spirit is more conducive to our spiritual growth and life, than the law ever could be.

THE ONE WHO IS RIGHTEOUS... (v. 11).

After reminding the Galatians that they received Jesus through ‘the Spirit’ rather than through the ‘works of the law’, he moves on to make another point.   He not only reminds them that their own saving experience with Jesus is based on ‘believing’ and ‘trusting’ in Jesus through the Spirit, but he reminds them that this also how it was before Moses, and before Abraham made his covenant promise through circumcision. 

Before Moses gave the law, and before Abraham made his covenant,  Paul says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (3:6).  Paul’s point here is that the one who has faith in God is the one God has always considered righteous.  Righteousness never began with any ‘work of the law’ but even the ‘works of the law’ where always done because of faith.   Faith is the key to being right with God, not legalistic rituals, regulations, or requirements.   Even the best of God’s laws, were always, from the very beginning ‘works of faith’ before they were ever ‘works of law’.   Those who ‘believe are blessed with Abraham who also believed (9).

Paul is putting the promise of the Spirit above ‘works of the law’ because God wants us to have faith and trust in him.   Faith is where God is going in his saving work among us, the Gentiles.  And Paul brilliantly argues, faith is also how God originally began with Abraham.  Just like the Gentiles do, and Abraham was a Gentile before he began a Jew, and as a Gentile Abraham ‘believed God’, or ‘trusted God’ and this is what made Abraham righteous.  

It was never the law that made Abraham righteous, just like the law still doesn’t make people righteous.  People only follow the law because they are already righteous in their heart.   Righteous people were given the law to help them deal with their human limitations and their sinfulness, but the it was still faith that made them righteous---the law was only ‘teacher’ and a ‘reminder’ of what God expected of his people, so they could take the blessing of faith to the world, but the law was never the blessing itself.  Having faith in God, trust in God was the blessing then, and it is still the blessing now. 

Faith and trusting God is the source of righteousness, goodness, and how God’s salvation in released by grace, through faith, in the Spirit, into the human heart.  ‘Works of the Law’ only end up as a ‘curse’.   It curses us, not because the law is bad, but because we can never perfectly keep the law.  ‘The law doesn’t rest on faith’, but it rests on works.  Christ came to redeem us from the ‘curse of the law’ which will eventually condemn us, rather than save us.

Now, before I come to Paul’s final point, we need to at least understand that Paul is not, in any way against God’s law, nor is he ever against people who keep God’s law.  He is only against those who try to force this law on others, or who say God only saves through the law.  Jesus never said he came to ‘abolish’ the law, but that he came to ‘fulfill’ God’s law.  It is love, and trusting faith in God’s love, that fulfills God’s law.  But even when we love, and even when we have faith, we are still sinners.  And as sinners, who live our lives in a continual struggle with the flesh, we still need good laws, and we even need the spirit of Moses’ laws; but not the ‘letter’ of those laws.

A good example of our need for law, is what happened at Oxford University during WWII.  Inside the beautiful, unique circular library at Oxford, there is a wonderful circle of green grass.  When it was originally built, there was a large circle of iron fence built to keep people off the grass.  But during the war, that iron was removed and made in to armaments.   After the war was over, for several years, there was no fence, and people enjoyed the beauty of the grass, having picnics, tours, and continually walking across the grass.  Today, the iron fence had to go back up.  It takes away some of the beauty of the circle of grass, but the fence is necessary to preserve the beauty inside the circle.   And that’s exactly what the law can do, it can prevent abuse, it can deter destruction, and it can also preserve life.  

But what the law cannot do, like that iron fence can’t do, is give us the greatest most beautiful reality of all; the law can’t give create life; either physically or spiritually.  Only the creative power of the Spirit gives life.   The Spirit works, people respond in faith, and this is how the the Spirit works the greatest ‘miracles’ in life; and the greatest of all miracles is the miracle of grace that gives birth to ‘faith’.  

THE PROMISE...THROUGH FAITH (v. 14)

“Those who rely on the works of the law live under a cruse’, Paul says, but ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law’, and from now on, since ‘no one is really ever justified or made righteous by the law’,  ‘the one who is righteous will live by faith’.

Paul’s argument about the Spirit, that brings us grace, faith and redemption from the curse of the law and from the power of sin too, is what ‘the promise of the Spirit’ is, and this is how Abraham’s blessing is poured out all over the world,  ‘by grace, through faith, and through the power and the promise that is in God’s Spirit.  

This is also how we keep going forward in God and it’s how we grow and are ‘sanctified’ and ‘set apart’ as God’s people in the world.   What we do in the world, whether they be works of love, or even maintaining God’s Spiritual law, are made possible in the world because of ‘who we are’, first of all.   What we do, the ‘miracles’ of good, which are ‘miracles of the spirit, are only possible because of the promise of God’s Spirit, who is alive and at work in us.  God’s Spirit gives spiritual life in us through Jesus Christ, and then we live ‘by faith’ through the Spirit of Christ’s love and life in us.

This is how the Christian life works, not only for God’s people, but it’s how God’s Spirit can also already be at work in lives of those who are not yet Christian, but who are opening their heart to the living, freeing, forgiving Spirit of love loose in the world.

Once, when the well-known prime minister of Great Britain, Margret Thatcher was visiting an old folks home, and she was speaking to a resident there and asked her,  “Do you know who I am?”   The resident replied, “No, dear, but you should asked the nurse over there.  She can tell you who you are.”

Late last January, Arla and Warren Cutts visited some of us to her home to watch a Christian Movie everyone should see.   “Overcomers” is a Christian Movie by the Kendrick brothers about ‘who we all are’ and who we need to realize that we are, so we can be loved by God and love others.  That’s the message of the movie, which tells of a young girl, the only member of the Christian School’s track team, who is being raised by her grandmother, because, as she was told her parents were dead.  But the main part of the story is that her father isn’t dead, and ends up, from his hospital bed being her coach, because once he was a track star himself.  What the story is mainly about, however, is not how she gets to know her father before he dies, but how this struggling young girl gets to know God, as her loving, heavenly Father, who loves her, just as she is.   One of the most moving scenes is how the girl is told to read the first two chapters of the book of Ephesians to learn who she is, in Christ.  She writes in her notebook: “I’m Blessed”.  “I’m Beloved”.  “I’m Redeemed”.  “I’m Chosen”.  “I’m a child of God”.  It’s a tear-jerking moment, when this girl, who was left without father, now has two fathers; who are both ‘coaching’ her to become the person she can be because of love.

This is exactly what the law can’t do.  The law can tell us what to do.  The law can tell us what we don’t do right.   The law can condemn us for not doing it or it might even commend us for doing the right, but the law can’t tell us who we are, nor can it tell us that we are loved, which is based on nothing, as the song says, ‘but Jesus’ blood and his own righteousness’.  The righteousness of Jesus is to show us, through his death, that God loves us, and that we are God’s child, chosen, loved, and blessed, before the law, and even before the ‘foundation of the world’. 

This is the ‘promise of the Spirit through faith’.   When we believe in love, and when we receive God’s grace,  we gain a ‘promise’ that gives birth to ‘trust’ and ‘faith’.  Paul was not going to give up on grace, faith, or the Spirit, because it did for him what the law could never do.   It was the Spirit of God’s grace, that gave him the saving, redeeming knowledge of God’s love.  No law, not even God’s law, could ever replace love.  In fact, faithful love is even what the law was originally about.  

Are you a legalistic person?   What out!  That can make you unloving and unlovable.  That is a step backward, rather than a step forward.   There are so many seemingly unsolvable problems in today’s world.   But do you know why seem to be so unsolvable?   They are problems that go to the core of everything.  And they are problems that will never be solved by human laws, just like God could redeem the world only through law either.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave...”  No law made God do that.  Love did.  This is where ‘Spirit’ gives birth to ‘faith’ that saves.   This is also where God’s Spirit gives us the strength to grow in that same love.   God’s love is what gives us the ‘promise of the Spirit’ to move forward in faith.   Amen.