ATTN: If you didn’t know, I like sports. Janet and I pretty much follow all major sports and watch every major championships – NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA March Madness, Tennis, and of course the Olympics. Heck, we even started watching horse races because we liked the movie Secretariat so much! I think we all understand the concept that it is not how you begin, it is how you finish. In recent years, some teams have begun so well, only to lose the championship. The Golden State warriors last year had the record breaking regular season winning 73 out 82 games. But they lost the NBA Finals to the Cavaliars. Several years ago, New England Patriots had the perfect regular season only to lose to the Giants in the Superbowl. It’s not how you begin. It’s how you finish.

In Christian life, that mantra also applies. How does a Christian life begin? It began by faith in Christ. That is the only way to begin. “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God and not of yourselves.” So, Christian life starts with faith, which is simply believing and receiving what God has done for us. And that is how it must end as well – in faith. But so many people think that we may have begun with faith, but now we have to finish it or complete it by our good works. So, really, we are meeting God half way. God started it and now we finish it. So, our salvation is really a team work. God starts it, but we complete it by our obedience and good works so that we can feel proud about ourselves. To use the sports metaphor again, there is the superstar player but he can’t do it alone. He need a supporting cast. So, God is the superstar, and we are his supporting cast. We mop up our lives after HIm.

Although this sounds good in just about every arena, it is deadly when it comes to our relationship with God. To live by faith, which is what all genuinely adopted children of God do, is to continue to rely on God’s strength and to learn to turn over every area of life from self-reliance to God-reliance. But how do we do that? How do we live by faith? That is what Galatians 3:1-9 addresses.

1. Recognize the tendency to revert back to self-reliance. (relying on work based salvation)

Paul says in v. 1, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

            Paul is furious! He is flat our rebuking the Galatians at this point for them their trying to live according to the Jewish law, such as getting circumcised, not eating pork, observing special days, associating only with ceremonially clean people. But what’s wrong with that? They are trying to be good people! It’s not like they are living licentiously with sexual immorality, drinking orgies or anything that we normally associate with sin. Instead, they were teaching their children to be in church every Sunday morning, give tithes on everything they earn, go to every Bible study that’s offered, say their grace before they eat, wear the cross necklace wherever they go and tell everyone about it. What is wrong with that?

What was wrong was that they were becoming self-reliant. What is wrong with self-reliance? Afterall, isn’t that the goal of parenting – to help our children become self-reliant and not be dependent upon the parents forever? I mean, at ages 10 and 8, if our girls are still breastfeeding, wearing diapers, we have a problem. But when it comes to our relationship with God, it’s exactly the opposite. We started out self-reliant. We only trusted ourselves and went only with whatever will give us pleasure without a thought for God. And that is the very definition of sin. Sin is not doing bad things. It is relying on the self to save the self. Remember how Adam and Eve introduced sin to this world and ever since we have perpetuated it? What is the essence of sin? The essence of sin is self-reliance. They thought that their way was better than God’s way. They thought that they could be equal with God in wisdom when they disobeyed God and ate of the fruit. Listen: Sin is not doing bad things. It is relying on the self to save the self. Sin is even doing good things apart from God trying to save the self. That is why I made a surprising statement some months ago, “Hell will be full of good people who justified themselves, and heaven will be full of bad people whom God justified.”

So, becoming a Christian means that now God has entered our lives and He is sitting on the throne of our lives and He is dictating and ordering our lives. And becoming mature in Christ is that Christ has more and more of our lives and every part of our lives gets aligned with the goodness of God, which means that we become more and more reliant God as we grow closer to God. It’s the exact opposite of human parent/children relationship. Our earthly parental success is measured by how independent our children have become from us, but heaven parent’s success is measured by how dependent we have become on God. When you were a babe in Christ, you could go weeks without talking to God or hearing His word. But when you grow mature, you cannot even go a day without talking to Him or hearing His word.

Living by faith is purely being god-reliant. Faith is believing what God has done in the past, trusting God for the promises He has made in the future. It is completely relying on God for our worth, identity, and significance. But the Galatians began to listen to some Judaizers who were teaching them if they want to become truly committed believers, then they must go all in and become like the Jews and obey all the laws – in other words, clean themselves through their own self-effort and keeping the rules….

Our old adamic nature will pull us back to work-based salvation. We will keep wanting to draw our identity, signficance and value from what we do and what we accomplish and compare ourselves to those around us and feel good or bad depending on how we measure up in what we think is significant rather than depending on the finished work of Christ. Living by faith means to recognize and fight back the urge to revert back to self-reliance.

2. Remember why we need the cross daily.

Verse 2 says, “it was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” What Paul was reminding the Galatians was that their condition was so grievous the only remedy was for the Son of God to die on their behalf. It wouldn’t do for them to kill thousands of animals in their place. It wouldn’t do for them to throw their sons and daughters into the fire to atone for their sins as some Israelites apparently tried to do.  If so, how foolish for them to think that just starting to go through some rituals and abide by some laws will make them clean? Again, that’s like a cancer patient in his last days thinking that if he eats less and exercises more, he will be alright. It’s way too late for that. Living by faith, what will cling us to God is our desperate need for the cross daily.

Tim Keller has this great line: “You are more sinful and flawed than you could ever dare imagine.” Isn’t it true that when you hear a preacher say something like what I just said, that we are sinners deserving death, you don’t really identify? “But I really don’t think I’m that bad. I mean I know I’m not perfect and I’m flawed, but I’m not so bad that I think I deserve death. Now, someone like Osama Bin Laden or Sandy Creek shooter who killed all those school children in a mass shooting are evil, but me… I’m really not that bad…” But measured by whose standard? Measured by our own standard against others who are just like us! But who told us that should be our standard? No one. We just assumed it because we believe naturally that we are the center of the earth, and not God. After WWII, when Hitler’s SS guards who murdered thousands upon thousands of Jewish children, women and men, and they were tried as war-criminals, most of them were acquitted because they collectively defended themselves by saying that they were simply following orders from their superiors. Not an ounce of remorse when you watch the Nurumberg trial. Why? Because they were measuring themselves by others who were just like them, all of them mass killers just like them…

APP: My pryaer is that God will convict you and me how great sinners we are so that we can see how great a Savior Jesus is. One of the evidences of the Holy Spirit residing in us is that what we thought was no big deal now is a big deal. In a dirty room, a fly would be no big deal. But in a pristine room, a fly will stick out and you will want to get rid of it.

3. Keep hearing the gospel – abraham, we are fighting to rest. Mary & Martha

(Heart change happens)

Lastly, to live by faith, we must keep hearing the gospel. Verse 2 and verse 5 repeat the same phrase: v. 2, “Did you receiv the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” v. 5, “Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” So, two times, Paul two ideas that are opposing each other. On one end is salvation by works of the law. What is the opposite? It’s hearing with faith. He juxtaposes working and hearing, and the law and faith. So, self-reliant sin is me working to keep the law. The opposite of that which God approves is “hearing with faith.” So, how do we not become self-reliant sinners? How do we resist the urge to revert back to our old ways? We keep hearing the gopel. That is how our faith grows. Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

And where do you hear the word of Christ? You hear it in a church meeting like this. You hear it when you meet in a community group. You also hear it when you meet one-on-one over coffee with a believing brother or sister. And that is why we ask you not to neglect meeting together. That is why we urge you to make gathering in a church service your priority. Why? Because if we don’t do so, God won’t be pleased and may not let us into heaven? No. that’s legalism and that is exactly what we’ve been speaking against. But making efforts to stay in the faith. We have to work hard to rest in God, to remain in God. If you are confused as to what constitutes iegalist work and good work, I think Dallas Willard’s words may help. He said, “Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning.” It is biblcial and right to work hard. The opposite of legalim and self-reliance is not laziness and worklessness. No. the opposite of legalism and self-reliance is love and god-reliance. Love for God and reliance on God. The reason why we work hard is not so that we can earn God’s acceptance – that’s legalism, but we work hard because we love God. We strive to come to church every Sunday not so that in the end God will say, “Good boy. You’ve done good by dong a good thing like going to church. Come into my heaven” But rather, I go to church every Sunday I can because there I meet my God and hear His words which I love and i get to feast with my brothers and sisters whom I can encourage and praise together.

APP: I dont know if you’ve notice, but whatever topic we start out here at As One, it ends up with Jesus in the end. The reason is because we believe ultimately what will give you the greatest joy is not a good marriage. Is not social skill that will give you many friends. Is not being a great leader many people will admire and follow. But rather it’s Jesus. Our greatest problem was being without God. making ourselves take the postion of god. Family problems. Friendship problems.

I used to preach a lot more on those specific topics and I think they have their place but I realize that ultimately if Jesus does not become the greatest treasure in your life, all I’m doing is putting a bandaid on a Leukemia patient. What he needs is a bone-marrow transplant. What he needs is a new heart. To be born again.

That is why paul was so adamant about keeping the gospel pure and not adding anything to it like working to obtain what god has already given.