"Where is Our Hope For Eternity?"

 Scripture:   Philippians 3:17–21; Luke 13:31-35  

We will remember from Acts 16:6-10 that when Paul planned to take his ministry to Asia, the Holy Spirit told him that he must go to Macedonia instead.  It was during this, his second Missionary Journey that he visited the city of Philippi, which is, obviously, located in the province of Macedonia.  This city was completely Roman in nature, populated primarily by Roman born citizens, governed by Roman administrators, and all living under Roman law, discipline and culture.  It would have been a daunting trial for him to begin a ministry founded in Jesus Christ when there was such a predominance of Roman cults and gods.  But then, if God is for us, how can anything fail? (Romans 8:31-32)

 As Paul began to teach and proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, his faith would have stood out very plainly in contrast to the traditional Roman form of faith that began in worship of the emperor!  And yet, many must have listened to him, eager to hear about this new God which they knew very little of.

 Paul’s letter to this church would have been written a number of years later while he was under arrest in a Roman prison.  The letter was certainly one of both encouragement and warning concerning the dangers associated with listening to false teaching.

 From the Book of Philippians:

 Read Philippians 3:17-21

 The apostle begins this passage with a call for the church to follow his example, which is to say, to return to the teaching that they had heard when he first came to them.  As in several of his letters, Paul offers himself as a role model to the church, for he knows firsthand what they may be going through!  He had not only come from a different understanding in faith, but he had also been embroiled in disagreements over what faith in Jesus Christ should involve.  Paul was now committed to following the example of Christ, and he offers the example that he received from Jesus to support and empower the church in Philippi.

 Paul knew full well the extent that the “enemies of the Cross” would go to in bringing faith in Christ to an abrupt end in the lives of the faithful!  So who are these false teachers who are working so diligently to lead the people astray?  With the reference of “their stomach is their god”, it could very well be Jews who were continuing to contradict Paul’s teaching of faith above the law!  The Jewish dietary laws could be the most obvious and easiest means of initiating an attack on the truths that Paul had been preaching.

 Of course, to no longer be “under the law” was never intended to mean that you could do anything that “floated your boat”!  It means that we are now expected to be faithful to the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ.  But the minds of those “enemies of the Cross” are so focused and obligated to the worldly ways that are so familiar to all of us, that any other way just didn't fit with their own desires and understanding.

 But Paul lays it right out for the Philippians when he reminds them that by faith in Christ, we have taken on a new “citizenship” – one that has a heavenly origin and a basis that is solely ordained through faith in the Son of God.  And when people begin to rewrite the very precepts of that faith, it is then that they become aligned with and identified as those “enemies” that Paul was writing about.  For the citizens of heaven, their destination is glorious salvation, while for the enemies of faith, their destination, as Paul writes, is destruction! 

 There is but one Savior and one salvation, and that is by trust and obedience to the way of Jesus Christ.

 Read Luke 13:31-35

 One question that I expect that we all may be asking ourselves, is why would the Pharisees be concerned at all for Jesus’ welfare?  Throughout the rest of the gospels, the Pharisees are the ones who want to see the ministry and truth of Jesus to come to a screeching halt!  Or is their intention to simply drive Jesus out of Jerusalem and away from the temple where He seems to be doing a lot of His teaching?  In the previous chapter, in Luke 12:1-3, the writer tells us that Jesus warned His disciples to “^1b Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. ² There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.”  In other words, their false words and deceitful ways will, one day, be revealed for the lies that they truly are.

 A second question that we might be pondering, leads us to wonder what Jesus is actually talking about when he refers to driving out demons and healing the people for two days, until the third day, when He reaches His goal?  The Lord doesn’t actually explain His words, but I would presume that it is all in reference to His crucifixion and resurrection.

 For the two days of demonic expulsion and healing for the people, this would, I believe, be a reference to His crucifixion, which would soon be freeing believers from the ways of Satan, which is sin, and would bring about freedom from the condemnation that the sentence of death brings to all who have never given their lives to Christ.

 And regarding the third day, when He reaches His goal?  On the day of His resurrection, the final day of His mission to earth, Jesus begins revealing the fullest of truth regarding His life, beginning at the discovery of the empty tomb, and continuing for the next 40 days until His ascension.  In total, 1 Corinthians15:3-7 tells us that the Risen and Living Christ appeared to over 500 believers during this time.  (Luke 24: 20-27)

 He tells the Pharisees that the lives they have been living are empty, and that their lives will, one day, be revealed as sinful when He returns.  For on that day, when all will proclaim “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord ”, their false legalism will have no other result than to leave them on the outside of glory, looking in!

 And so it could be with us.  In Revelation22:18-21, we read that anyone who adds a single word to scripture will receive “the plagues described in this book.”, and if anyone takes away any word, “God will take away from his share in the tree of life and in the holy city”.  Unless our life is in Christ, and He is within us, the day will come when no matter how “good” a life we have lived, there will be no life and no holy presence whatsoever for those who hear Jesus say “I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers!”  (Matthew 7:22-24)

 Those words from Revelation are the final words of warning in the Bible.  And everyone should listen to them and take them to heart.  For without Jesus, we will be lost for all time.

"Do We Want Glory for our God, or For Ourselves?"

 Scripture:   Romans 10:8 -13; Luke 4:1-13

We have set Paul’s letter to the Galatians aside during Lent, but interestingly, his letter to the Romans is still encouraging the church to accept the true way of faith, and to never fall back into depending on personal abilities for their salvation!  But if we think about it, this life has always been about living a life that is “good enough”, regardless of what or who it may be that we are trying to impress.  The problem is that we never, ever, could be good enough to impress our precious and loving God!

 Goodness has never been a viable part of our human nature, and the Lord knows that, because He created us for relationship, and not for functional perfection!  The Lord’s desire for us is to live, love, walk and work with Him, not to find our own way to victory!  The best news, however, is that God has all of the “goodness” that will ever be needed, and He is prepared to shower us with all of the ”goodness” that we will ever need!

 And all that our Almighty God asks of us is to believe that He is all we will ever need, and that by faith, trust and obedience in the ways that He has laid down for us, His compassion and love will see us through those times when our imperfections seem to rise to the top of our lives.  Repentance for those actions, and making a concerted effort to never accept those old ways again, will be enough for those who have given their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ.

 Relationship in the way of Jesus, and obedience to all that He desires of us, is all that we should ever strive for.

 Read Romans 10:8-13

 Paul asks the rhetorical question “What does it say?”  And we need to understand that the preceding verses, are essentially asking – is there anyone sufficiently worthy of bringing Christ any closer to us by their own desires or works?  And he then proclaims that they have heard the answer, and that they should already be closer to the Lord through the faith that had been revealed to them!  In 1 Corinthians 1:21-25, Paul addresses this very issue when he tells us that neither Jews nor Gentiles like to surrender their lives to the crucified Christ, for they see faith in the Risen Christ as either “foolishness” or “weakness”.

 And for those who still believe that Gentile converts to Christ must become Jewish in their very nature, he reminds them that as far as God is concerned, there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, for all must faithfully call on the name of the Lord if their hope for salvation is to have any chance at all.

 For Paul, this is the very essence of faith in Jesus.  Without believing that only God could lift Himself up out of death, and that Jesus is our Lord God Himself, there is no true faith in our lives.  Believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not optional in faith – it is our sure sign that the gospel that has been proclaimed throughout the years is always true and undeniable! 

 In Matthew 5:17-18, Jesus tells us that He is the fulfillment of the Law!  Of course, He isn’t referring to humanity’s law, that which the Pharisees were so focused upon, but rather to the Law that God has set down for all mankind!  And unless we submit ourselves to the precious, righteous, holy name of Jesus, salvation will only be an illusive word in our lives.  But proclaiming Jesus as Lord of our life, by surrendering ourselves to His Lordship, His Authority, and His Truth, it is then and only then that salvation from the condemnation of sin will become ours.

 Read Luke 4:1-13

 This passage, of course, relates the temptations that Satan threw at Jesus during a time when His life was at its weakest.  He had just spent 40 days of fasting after He had been baptized by John in the Jordan.  The one thing that we have to remember about this event is that Jesus was as human as each of us is, and through our humanity and the many forms of weakness that plague us. We are also opened up to the temptations that evil brings into this life.

 While it is true that Jesus was mighty in His divine and holy Being, his humanness experienced just as many worldly enticements as we do, and He had to constantly be on the alert if He was to remain in the plan that His Father had set in motion.  So why were the temptations that Satan offered him so similar to the ones that we have to deal with, and how did the Lord teach us to deal with each one?

 In the first temptation, Jesus was hungry, and He needed to be nourished.  Satan challenges Him to feed Himself – after all, He had the power to do that!  But Jesus recalls a verse from Deuteronomy 8:1-5 – that was offered to the people during a time of uncertainty for Israel.  They were on the verge of entering the Promised Land, but they weren’t all that certain as to whether they could defeat the people who lived there or not. 

 They were reminded that when they ran out of food in the wilderness, that God provided manna and quail to feed them each and every day.  The point is that we need to depend on God’s promised provision in more ways than we trust in our own abilities.  This is what Jesus remembered, and spoke this truth to Satan – “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” 

 Satan tried to tempt Jesus to care for His own needs, instead of trusting that His Father would provide all that He would ever need.  And when we are in a situation where we are tempted to strike out on our own, we need to turn to the word of God, and trust in the way that the Lord will provide for us.

  

In the second temptation, Jesus is tempted to receive authority and power over all of the world in a way that would allow Him to avoid the agony and terror of His Father’s plan.  He was being asked to compromise in all that He knew to be true.  And all He had to do was to turn away from the only One He had ever been able to depend upon throughout the time He had lived on Earth. 

 The passage He would lean upon was from Deuteronomy 6:10-13.  The people were being told that their Lord had prepared the way for them to be blessed when they entered the Land He had promised to them.  It would be complete with large wonderful cities that were just waiting for them to live in, there were wells with good water, there were flourishing orchards that they wouldn’t have to plant, so remember that the God who provides all of these good things is also the God who freed you from slavery in Egypt, and led you all the way through the wilderness and its uncertainty for many years.

 So don’t even think about serving and worshiping anything else, but “¹³ Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.”  He has helped you in the past, and still has good things in store for you from here on, so don’t start looking to the world to take over now that everything is going so well!

  Satan’s challenges had been defeated every time when Jesus turned to God’s promises in scripture, but there was one more challenge awaiting Him.  And this time, Satan uses scripture in trying to convince Jesus that God had promised that He would never be harmed, no matter what He did (Psalm 91:9-12).  Of course, Satan left out a couple of verses in his quotation, verses that would have totally changed the meaning – and what were those omitted verses? “If you say, “⁹The Lord is my refuge,   and you make the Most High your dwelling, ¹⁰ no harm will overtake you,” 

 And how does Jesus respond to Satan’s deception?  He lifts up another quotation from Deuteronomy 6:16 – “Do not put the Lord your God to the test…”  In other words, accept and trust in the totality of God’s word, and don’t take portions of it out of context just because they work better to prove your intent!

 So what are our lessons for today? 

 

First, don’t trust more in your own abilities than you do in God’s!

Second, when temptation tries to convince you that God doesn’t really care what happens to you, remember the promises that scripture holds, and know that God has always been there for you, and always will.

And Third, when the world uses words that sound like a command from God, don’t accept them blindly until you consider what other passages in scripture tell you, and then compare them to see where the complete truth lies.

This is essentially what Paul was telling us through his letter to the Galatians – trust in God, and don’t let others try to tell you any different!

 

“Failure in the Law, Victory in the Spirit”

 Scripture:   Galatians4: 8-11, 17-20; Galatians 4:21-26; Galatians 5:1,16-26

 As we continue through our series on the early church and the problems that were working to destroy the Christian faith in Galatia, we see that the only purpose that the law ever had was to be a placeholder for the people’s lives until Messiah arrived.  But the problem with the law was that human influence and involvement was injecting demands that God had never intended to be placed upon the lives of humanity!  Men were making additions to the law that had been set down for Moses on Mount Sinai, and their explanations as to what God had intended for the people were so far off track, that the law had become impossible for the people of God to follow.

 But when Jesus was sent to Earth, the divine expectation that God held out for humanity had left the law, and had become faith in who the Son of God was for us, as well as in trust and obedience of all that He had taught and had completed for us.

 It was the law at work when the Lord Jesus was crucified at Calvary, but it was God’s will at work that raised Him from death in the tomb and into eternal life.   As we have seen these past three weeks, there were still those who were pinning their hopes to the impotence of legalism.  But when Jesus ascended to His throne in heaven, did that imply that His rein on Earth had come to an end?  Certainly not!  God has promised that we will never be left wanting – in Deuteronomy 31:6, we read of God’s promise that “the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

 And how is God with us if Jesus has gone back to His Father?  The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, will continue to be with us, reminding us of all that the word and way of Jesus is, and has done, and will continue to do for us for all time!  Jesus will always be with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit!

 As today’s lesson begins, Paul continues with his teaching regarding the powerless hope and the damage that the law will work within us, and that faith in the work of God is our only hope.

 Read Galatians 4:8-11, 17-20

 Paul is beginning to move toward showing us that personal efforts, whether through the law, or through individual efforts of be “good” by some other human standard, will only be a means to slavery, and that faith in Jesus Christ is God’s way of ensuring that divine freedom is available for all who believe and obey.  Without Jesus in a person’s life, Paul is proclaiming that we are trapped and enslaved to a future that is dependent solely in the inadequate hope that Earth can offer, and that there will be nothing that the Lord of heaven can do for us until we surrender our own understanding and expectations.  Until we place our life fully in the hands of the only One who can save us, we will still be chained as slaves!

 The apostle is appalled that those who had once come to the grace and freedom that is only found by faith in Jesus Christ, are suddenly considering a return to the legality of worldly slavery.  He aches for their loss, but he still refuses to let them continue without his making a concerted attempt to restore them to faith in Jesus.

 Paul’s lesson and example for us is that we should never give up on anyone who hesitates, or even objects, to living in the way of God until all hope for victory totally escapes from our spirit.  Freedom is always worthy of our all-out commitment!

 Read Galatians 4:21-26

 Paul uses a very interesting example to describe the difference between the law and God’s grace.  Without going into any depth in the story of the offspring of Abram, who God would later rename Abraham, he would have two sons – Ishmael whose mother was Sarai’s slave Hagar, and Isaac, whose mother was Sarai, and who the Lord would later rename Sarah.  The difference between the two births, however, was that it was Abram who impregnated Hagar, but due to the extreme ages of both Abraham and Sarah, it was only God who caused this woman to become pregnant.

 (See Genesis 15:1-6; 16:1-4;21:1-7)

 Paul is referring to Hagar as a slave, which she actually was, and, as a point of comparison to the law, as a symbol of our slavery to the world.  But in the case of Sarah and her pregnancy, it was God’s blessing that freed her from the condemnation of the world.

 He tells us that Hagar represents the slavery and limitation of law – the problem was that as soon as Moses came back down the mountain, the law that he carried became susceptible to the world’s intervention and manipulation through their bondage.  

 But Sarah’s delivery of Isaac was different. For her, it was God’s work, and only His  that freed Abraham and Sarah from slavery and condemnation in the ways of the world, and brought them a child through the Lord’s grace!

 Read Galatians 5:1, 16-26

 The truth is that our “God will never leave us, nor forsake us”, for the Holy Spirit will be with us until the day when Jesus returns to sit in judgment over the false ways of Earth.  God is definitely with us, working in us, working through us, working for us through the power of faith.

 And as long as the Spirit of God is with us, and we with Him, the world’s law, which is sin, will stand in direct opposition to all that the Spirit proclaims for us.  The ways of each will always be in constant conflict with each other, with sin at work to enslave us, and the Spirit to free us.  But as long as we keep our eyes and ears and heart focused on the leading of the Spirit, sin will never find a way in.

 Consider the list of differences that the Apostle offers us in this passage.  His list of “acts of the sinful nature”  should be very familiar to us all, for who can possibly say that they have never fallen into the trap of at least one, and probably more, of them!  And how often have we been told by one of the world’s advocates that these are natural for people do, that these acts are all part of our human nature, and if we were created this way, how could they possibly be bad for us? 

 But if God denies these claims, and has proclaimed them to be detrimental to our mortal lives, how could we possibly have been created that way?  God is unchanging, and His  word tells us otherwise!  Paul’s acknowledgment at the conclusion of this list (verse 26!), that “those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” should encourage us to avoid them all like the plague that they truly are!  As we read through them, it becomes obvious that they are all centered on our own personal gratification and glorification, which is far from a Godly way of life.

 But what about the “fruit of the Spirit”?  Where are they focused?  Either to the betterment of others (love, joy, peace, patience, and so on), or to the glorification of God (goodness, faithfulness, etc.). 

 And that is the victorious life that Jesus has brought to all who will believe in Him. 

“Life in Faith, Death in the Law”

 Scripture:   Galatians3:1-5, Galatians 3:6-14, Galatians 3:15-18, 21-22

 In today’s readings, Paul continues in his criticism of the practice of putting trust in the law of Moses, ahead of faith in the commands and way of Jesus Christ.  The Lord never suggested that the Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai be changed (Exodus 20:1-17), but He did teach us that the additions that men added to the Father’s law were burdens that would certainly break us. (Luke 11:45-47)

 Paul also understood the difference between the Commandments of God and the rules that were added by the elitists of Israel, and he would never make an exception for any of the man-made laws ever again.  Of course, in his previous life as a Pharisee, the laws of Moses were all that he ever found value in!  But now, faith had supplanted it all. 

 Read Galatians 3:1-5

 The apostle begins this portion of his letter by accusing the Galatians of essentially becoming absent minded and forgetting everything that they once knew about Jesus!  He called them foolish, deceived, bewitched, forgetful, and was probably thinking of several other characteristics that he decides not to mention at this time! 

 He had become extremely disappointed in them, as he knew quite well what he had taught them about Jesus and His Good News when he founded the churches in Galatia several years before. Since then, the people had been fooled into believing false claims about faith that should, instead, have been centered in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and now they were moving far away from the truth that they once had embraced.

So Paul began to test them on what he had taught them before, to see if they actually remembered anything that they had received and accepted during his first missional journey.  He asks them about the work of the Spirit in their lives, versus what they now are believing through false teaching.  He reminds them that in the beginning of their walk in faith, that the Spirit of God had worked wonders within them, but now they are turning toward what they can do all on their own through personal works in legalism.

 The evangelist is hurt spiritually by their believing the lies that they had blindly accepted as a truth.  He is disappointed that all that he had taught, all that he had shown them in love, all that Jesus had done for them, was now being wasted in the misplaced trust that they were living through their own poor understanding! 

 Remember Peter’s experience that we talked about last week at the house of Cornelius?  The Spirit had come to rest on all who had heard the truth of Jesus that day, and here the Galatians had apparently received that same blessing on their lives.  But now it seems that they have turned their backs on both Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in favor of the law that had been set down by the Pharisees!

 Shame is about the only way to describe Paul’s disappointment in the people of Galatia.

 Read Galatians 3:6-14

 So why is Paul’s heart so troubled for the Galatians?  Because they have put their confidence in a system that will bring a curse down upon them, even though they had been taught better! 

 Abraham trusted God, and was seen as righteous.

 Obedience to God’s ways brings blessings, and that Abraham’s descendants, and we, are to use those blessings to bless others! (Genesis12:1-3)

 And it all comes to those who trust in God through a faith that is like that which Abraham showed to the Lord.

 The problem with the law is that its justification will only come to those who obey every single command that it proclaims! (Deuteronomy 27:26)  No one has ever been able to accomplish that, and no one ever will!  Faith and trust in God is the only hope that anyone will ever know.

 Paul’s point is that justification through the law is based on what we accomplish, and is seen solely as a test of our own abilities, while justification by faith is based in the grace of God alone.  Failure to adhere to every aspect of the law is condemnation, for there is no exception in the law.  But failure in faith, which is sin, can always be resolved through our repentance and God's forgiveness.  Condemnation through the law is all on us, but forgiveness of sin by faith in Jesus Christ is all in the ways of God at Calvary!

 As Paul puts it – redemption that comes to us by faith in Jesus is only possible since He took our condemnation in sin to the cross with Him, leaving it there, nailed to the tree of judgment and death.  But in His resurrection, all who would love Him and trust Him, would find life once again, within the eternal life that He had received.

 Read Galatians 3:15-18, 21-22

 For anyone who might suggest that the law could supersede and overturn the grace that the Lord would show to the faithful of Christ, Paul reminds us that the human additions to the law, first of all, does not receive this level of authority, and second, could never have the authority to disallow the word of God that comes to us through the life and word of Jesus Christ.

 Faith in the Son of God guarantees the only eternal, unchanging, perfect, and loving assurance that the world will ever know through their way!  And there will never be anyone who has the right to change the covenant that the Lord has set down, and neither can they ever change the truths that Christ has brought to our lives.

 The power of God – Omnipotence - is limitless.

The wisdom of God – Omniscience - is far greater than anything that we can ever hope for or understand. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

And the love of God is proven through Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary, which gained His eternity for all who are faithful toward Him.  And as our love for Christ grows, we begin to discover all the ways that the Lord works within, and on behalf of, those who will love Him.

 And unfortunately, the world will, one day, discover that they will never know that love through the ways that they follow and profess.   And that will be the greatest shame in their entire lifetime!