Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age,
according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and
ever. Amen. (Galatians 1:3-5 ESV)
In studying the first chapter of
Galatians I am struck once again with the absolute insistence of Paul that
grace is administered through the gospel. The only means by which we can
procure God’s grace is through the good news; faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of [about]
Christ, as Paul states in Romans 10:17. In fact, the entire book of
Galatians is about the importance of the purity of the gospel message, for
without the absolutely unadulterated message of grace (free from all hint of justification
by law) there can be no true faith in Christ. When we mix the gospel of free
grace with any other message, our hearers end up with an impure faith – they
will trust Christ to the extent of their knowledge of his grace, but from that
point they will rely on works of the law for their justification or
sanctification. If they respond to a message of the absolute free grace of God,
as I believe Paul preached, that grace will extend freely into every corner of
their lives without limit.
So often when we fail to
recognize the good news as the means
of grace in our lives and we end up experimentally seeking grace through experiences
– spiritual mountaintops – or through works. We wonder all the time if this or
that is God’s will for our lives. All of these things – spiritual experiences,
good works and the knowledge of God’s will – are meant to be fruit that grows
out of the good soil of His grace at work in our lives.
Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the
law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit,
are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:2-3 ESV)
Do we often stop to think that we
actually received the Spirit by hearing with faith? Do we think that
we can walk in the Spirit by any other means as Christians? We set aside the gospel
of grace – the means by which the Spirit is administered – and seek some
experience of the Spirit through the flesh. We seek the Spirit to make us
spiritual, when in fact the Spirit is evidence of the hearing with faith that truly
makes us spiritual. This is why Paul is absolutely resolved to preach a pure gospel
that excludes every work of the flesh, including trying to please God by means other than faith by hearing.
We concentrate on each little
victory and fret over each little opportunity we encounter because we limit the
work of God’s grace in our lives. We will only allow Him to save us so much
before we begin to try and save ourselves. Paul, for one, allowed God to save
him completely by refusing to find security in anything but the grace of God
which had been revealed to him in the gospel. He never allowed himself to place
limits on God’s grace, because the gospel which he had been given (by direct
revelation of Christ) was a gospel of unlimited grace.
To end today, let me share this
with you. God can love you unconditionally because Christ met every condition
of God on your behalf. What that means is, to the extent that you believe it,
you are free. Free from seeking the approval of God, yourself and others. If
you hear that with faith, you will receive the Holy Spirit who will produce the
fruit of God in your life. Don’t seek the fruit which grace produces as the
means of grace. Seek grace (His Kingdom and righteousness) first and all of
these things will be added to you. That is the gospel truth.
God Bless
No comments:
Post a Comment