[0:00] As we begin this morning, you can turn in your Bibles to page 973.
[0:19] As you're turning there, we're looking at the book of Galatians chapter 3. And before we dive in, I need to make a quick excursus on translations. We have great translations in English of the Bible.
[0:31] They come from the original languages of Greek and Hebrew. And every once in a while, you'll read through a number of different English translations. And you'll find, oh, these don't really say quite the same thing.
[0:44] If you look at the end of verse 5 of the chapter 3 that we're looking at this morning, there's a dash and then a continuation of a thought into verse 6.
[0:55] This is the way this translation has it. We're not going to read it as a continuation. We are going to read it as many other English translations do with a period at the end of 5.
[1:09] And then as Nick preaches next week, he will start with verse 6 along the lines of, consider Abraham, how he was reckoned righteous by his faith. And I believe verse 6 introduces what comes after.
[1:22] It's a connecting verse and the meaning of the verse is not changed. But in terms of how we connect, I just want to say that so that you don't get distracted when we get to the end of the sermon and I stop at verse 5 and you're thinking, what about verse 6?
[1:36] So, just a little heads up as to where we're going. Having said that, Galatians chapter 3 verses 1 through 5. Let me read it for us this morning.
[1:47] Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
[2:02] 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?
[2:12] Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain?
[2:23] 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?
[2:35] This is God's Word. I want to ask you a question this morning. What do you think the good Christian life looks like? This is a very pertinent topic and you may have noticed it's come up in our presidential primary discussion recently.
[2:51] As discussions about, is this person really a Christian? Do you think this person is really a Christian? What does it look like to be a good Christian? And it's a question that I would say is something that our world asks itself as they look at the church and think, what does it mean to be a Christian?
[3:10] And perhaps for many of you, it's a question as well. As you're thinking, I want to be a Christian. What does that mean? And I think there are lots of maybe ideas out there of what it could look like.
[3:24] Being a good Christian could look like moral uprightness. The old classic formula, don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, don't go with girls that do. It could look like social activism.
[3:37] Care for the poor, the oppressed, the trafficked. Maybe it's defined by spiritual disciplines. I read my Bible every day. I pray, I give, I'm active in fellowship.
[3:51] It could look like being active at church. I'm at every prayer meeting, every potluck, every small group. Could look like I'm a good family man or woman, faithful to my spouse, raising my kids so that they're going to be good, productive people in society who go to church.
[4:13] Maybe it's theological knowledge. I can cross my T's and dot my I's and my tulip each day as I think about my theological exactness.
[4:28] All of these have their place in the Christian life. But I want to ask you this morning, when you heard me read the list, did you identify, yes, that's it. That's the one I think.
[4:39] That's the one that I take hold of. Having said this, I want to ask you a second question. That gets at the heart of our passage today.
[4:51] How does one become a good Christian? By what paradigm? By what power?
[5:01] By what means? Do we become the good Christian that we think we ought to be? And my fear is that so often our pursuit of a good Christian, no matter what it looks like in that list, it's characterized by self-effort.
[5:25] I'm going to go do this and become this by trying hard. What I'm going to call a moralism approach.
[5:39] It's a serious expression of devotion. I want to follow Christ. I want to be Christian. I want to glorify God. How do I do this? I try really hard to become a good Christian.
[5:53] And so we end up measuring ourselves and others as successes or failures as Christians based on what we do. How hard we try.
[6:09] And in fact, I think the watching world does the same. Engages our Christianity by whether we succeed or fail in meeting these standards of being a good Christian.
[6:23] And as we've already talked about, I want to remind you that this is a no-win proposition. This approach.
[6:34] If we succeed, we become complacent in our success, proud in our hearts, judgmental of others who can't quite hack it. We become the Pharisees of the Gospels. And if we fail, we walk around every day as defeated Christians.
[6:51] With guilt and shame about all the things that we aren't quite as we ought to be. We fall into despair. We stop trying. Maybe we just give up altogether.
[7:03] And we just run away into pleasure and drown our failures in the world. Brothers and sisters, this is a serious, serious thing.
[7:20] And my fear is that many of us have this same self-effort approach to the Christian life. And I say that because I know in my own heart that I, too, feel the pull to try to do it on my own.
[7:41] Is there any alternative? Well, friends, this is what brings us to our passage this morning. For Paul is concerned for the Galatians along these very same lines.
[7:51] He is concerned that the Galatian church is on the brink of embracing a particular kind of moralism. A particular kind of keeping by self-effort.
[8:02] The Old Testament law. The rights of circumcision. The dietary laws. The moral laws. As a standard of how to be a good Christian. And my hope is that this morning you will see, as Paul is trying to help the Galatians to see, the foolishness of this.
[8:23] But more than that, that you will see that there is hope. That there is another way. That there is a different way to pursue a good Christian life.
[8:35] As we look at this passage, you may have noticed it when I read it. It's not a carefully logical argument with therefores and so that's and in order that's.
[8:46] Paul is just sort of spewing pastoral care onto this church that he loves, that he's deeply concerned for. His tone is one of affection and of warning.
[9:02] And he uses rhetorical questions throughout it all. Rhetorical questions are ones that have an obvious answer. That demand an obvious answer that everyone should understand.
[9:15] So rather than developing this passage verse by verse, I'm just going to pull out three aspects of what I think Paul is doing here. So you can see the dynamics of what he's trying to get at as he's addressing the church in Galatia.
[9:28] And what he wants to get at to us in our hearts today. What I want us to see is at first he's going to appeal to what they know about Christ. Secondly, he's going to appeal to what they have experienced in Christ.
[9:44] And finally, he's going to challenge them. How will they pursue Christ? Let me pray before we continue. Lord, we ask you this morning by your spirit to help us.
[10:03] Lord, for we are so prone to depend on ourselves. We are so prone to want to be approved by you based on what we do.
[10:15] Lord, we despair at times. Is there any other way? Lord, I pray this morning you would fill us with hope, with confidence that there is another way, that you have done something marvelous for us in the gospel.
[10:33] Lord, open our minds to understand. Open our hearts to cherish and love. Lord, what you show us this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name.
[10:46] Amen. So first, Paul appeals to what the Galatians know about Christ. Oh, foolish Galatians.
[10:59] Oh, dear idiots. It's kind of a translation. Who has bewitched you? Who has blinded you? Who has made your spiritual discernment so foggy that you have forgotten what you know about Christ?
[11:20] Paul says, don't you remember? Don't you remember the gospel that I preached to you? Jesus Christ publicly portrayed like a billboard.
[11:31] Everyone could see it. Jesus Christ crucified for you. And in that little phrase, Christ crucified, it's almost like it's shorthand for this gospel of grace that Nick preached on so beautifully last week in the passage that comes right before in chapter 2, verses 15 through 21 of chapter 2.
[11:57] Paul's saying, don't you remember what I told you? This is what you know. Jesus Christ who loved you and gave himself up for you. Jesus Christ, the one who alone can save us from our sin.
[12:11] Jesus Christ, the only one who lived a perfect, sinless life. Jesus Christ who alone could die in our place, taking the wrath that our sin deserves in his death.
[12:26] And then rising from the dead so that he is able to bestow upon us, sinful, undeserving people, righteousness, approval, standing with God.
[12:42] How? Not by works, not by our effort, but by faith. We take hold of this by completely entrusting ourselves to Christ and what he has done for us.
[12:57] Not by works of the law. Not by our self-effort. Not by our self-justifying impulse. But by faith, Christ's righteousness is made our own.
[13:11] By faith, Christ's life is made our life. Paul says, do you remember that? Jesus Christ. Black-hearted.
[13:24] Publicly portrayed as crucified. How have you forgotten this? It's Paul's gospel that he preached to the Galatians when he first went there.
[13:40] It's Paul's gospel that he received. Thinking back through the argument of Galatians up to this point. It's Paul's gospel that he received on the road to Damascus. It's Paul's gospel that it was confirmed by the apostles in Jerusalem.
[13:51] It's Paul's gospel that he confronted Peter about in Antioch when his actions denied the very gospel that he claimed to believe. It was what he preached to the Galatians and it is what he is writing to them about now.
[14:06] This gospel of grace. Saying, oh, dear, silly, foolish ones. Have you forgotten?
[14:22] He's afraid they're going to turn away from it. That's what the whole book is about. He's afraid that they're going to leave this gospel of grace for something else.
[14:33] And brothers and sisters, this is God's word for us too. This word is saying to us, we too are in danger of turning away and embracing a self-effort, justifying moralistic picture of a good Christian.
[14:51] We too are in danger of forgetting the gospel of grace. So that's the first thing Paul does, is he just says, do you remember?
[15:03] Do you remember? And having reminded them of what they know about Christ, then he goes on. And he says, do you remember what you've experienced?
[15:13] You see it in verse 2. He says, do you remember? You received the spirit. This era inaugurating great move in redemptive history where God pours out his spirit, not just on the Jews, but on all who placed their faith in Jesus Christ.
[15:32] This great gift of the spirit of Christ dwelling within believers. So do you remember that that happened to you? Do you remember how?
[15:44] And then he says it again in verse 5, not about their initial entrance into their Christian life, but their ongoing experience of the Christian life. Look at verse 5. Does God, who is supplying the spirit to you now, the present continuous tense, even now he is supplying the spirit for you, and he's doing miraculous things among you.
[16:07] How does God do that? Is it because you are keeping the law so well? No. No. No. It's by faith.
[16:18] Do you remember? It's by faith that the spirit came. You didn't even know the law when you became a Christian. You Gentiles. It's by believing.
[16:32] And even now, God is still at work. Even verse 4. Verse 4 has this picture of, did you suffer in vain?
[16:46] Did you experience all those hardships? Why did they experience those things? They experienced them because they were suffering in believing in the gospel of grace at the hands of Jews who were offended at the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, who would welcome Gentiles without them becoming Jews.
[17:07] It says, did you suffer all that in vain? Do you want to turn away from that gospel of grace back to something else? If you didn't really believe it, why did you suffer all those things?
[17:22] And all of this, Paul is appealing to their experience. Do you remember how God worked in your life? Do you remember this incredible gift of the spirit?
[17:35] Do you remember the amazing works that God did among you? And God is doing among you. Do you remember how? How did these things happen?
[17:48] Was it because you were a good enough Christian in one standard or another? Was it because you met some mark of law keeping? No.
[18:00] By faith. Not on the basis of what we've done, but by faith. Oh, brothers and sisters, I want you to stop and think this morning.
[18:15] When you first believed, when you first recognized, nothing in my hands I bring, only to the cross I cling.
[18:27] When you first saw that you had no righteousness of your own, but that Christ could give it to you by faith. When you first saw the spirit come into your life.
[18:39] When you first saw God giving you a hunger for him. When you first saw God changing your character. That you started to love God and his kingdom more than yourself in this world.
[18:55] Do you remember those experiences? How did they happen? Because you were working so hard to be a good Christian? Because God in his grace was doing these things in you because you believed.
[19:11] Through your faith. Having appealed to what Paul reminded them about what they know about Christ.
[19:28] And having reminded them about what they've experienced in Christ, Paul finally challenges them to consider how they will pursue living in Christ.
[19:39] And this is the weight of this passage today, I believe. Verse 3 is the centerpiece of what this passage... Because a lot of what I've said up to now has been almost repetition of what we've already seen in Galatians.
[19:53] In verse 3, Paul says this, having begun in the spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh?
[20:06] That is, how are you going to keep going? What does it look like to pursue the good Christian life? There's a lot here, actually.
[20:19] This is a rich verse and with some rich concepts behind it. So we're going to dive into it in a bit more depth to try to understand it. The first thing I want you to see is that Paul has set up and is continuing to set up a dichotomy.
[20:34] There are two ways to live, he says. And these are the categories that we seek justification. Looking back at chapter 2, verses 15 through 21.
[20:46] And then we'll see it applies to our ongoing pursuit of Christian life. These two dichotomies, two ways to live. Over here, there is the gospel of grace. There's this.
[20:58] And over here, there is the gospel of self-effort. The gospel of self-justification. The gospel of grace includes, again looking back at the end of chapter 2. Justification by faith in Christ.
[21:10] Believing in Jesus Christ. Living to God. Christ living in us. And the life that we now live. We live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and died for us.
[21:22] This is the life of the gospel of grace. The gospel of self-effort includes justified by the works of the law. Living to the law, not dying to it.
[21:35] Still alive and striving for my own self-justification. I don't live by faith. I live by self-effort. And that's what he's done at the end of chapter 2.
[21:46] And then in chapter 3, and particularly in verse 3, he overlays. He adds to the richness of this dichotomy. Another axis. Another way in which these two ways to live are so different.
[22:03] He says, having begun in the Spirit. Having begun by the Spirit. Are you now going to be perfected in the flesh?
[22:16] Having begun in the Spirit. The Spirit who was a down payment and a guarantee that God has made us his own. The Spirit who is the Spirit of Christ living in us.
[22:27] Reminding us and teaching us of everything that Christ has taught us. And the gospel. The Spirit who is the very empowering presence of God himself.
[22:40] Living in a believer. Bringing spiritual vitality to the new man. The new person. The new self. That God has given us in Christ.
[22:54] We've begun by the Spirit. Paul says, are you going to try to complete this in the flesh? The flesh meaning our human nature still steeped in sin and rebellion.
[23:11] The human nature. Sinful nature. That is addicted to performance and self-justification. That desperately wants to be approved for something we have done.
[23:23] So we can boast at it and say. Look what I have done. And be approved because of that. The root of the flesh.
[23:36] Is connected to the works of the law. Because it gives us a way where even our religious activity. Ultimately is pointing towards us.
[23:48] And not God. So Paul has these two ways to live. These two dichotomies. And then as mutually exclusive paradigms.
[24:00] Each promising the good Christian life in a different way. But the mutually exclusive part is essential to this. It's like here's Mac OS X Mountain Lion coming to you this summer.
[24:15] On your computer the operating system that runs your Apple is a beautiful thing. And over here is Windows 7. I know some of you think it ought to be reversed.
[24:27] Choose your own. That's fine. However you want to read it. But you can't run both of them at the same time. On the same computer.
[24:37] You have to choose. We are all spiritually like men. We can only do one task at a time. We can only run one.
[24:51] One operating system at a time. You can't add them. You can't mix them. They are mutually incompatible. And Paul takes these two paradigms. And he shows that.
[25:02] As he's going on. That they're not only for justification. How we are approved by God. But then again in verse 3. They're for sanctification. How do we pursue and grow in.
[25:17] Being. What God has called us to be. How do we take hold of. The life in Christ that God has given us. That's what it means by. Now being perfected. Are you now being perfected.
[25:29] By faith. Or by the flesh. Now being perfected. The idea there is that we have a goal. That God has a goal. That there is. A John.
[25:41] A Sally. A Susie. That God has called out. Of sin. And into. New life in Christ. Christ. And there is a goal. That God has.
[25:51] For each of those people. To become. Like Christ. To become mature. In their faith. There is a goal. That we might be.
[26:02] In everything. To the glory of God. In all that we do. And Paul says. There's a goal. That we're all heading towards. We might call it.
[26:12] The good Christian. How are we pursuing. That. That's sanctification. If justification. Is our entrance in.
[26:24] Sanctification. Is our pursuit. Towards this end. And Paul says. We have to have.
[26:36] A consistent paradigm. We can't mix. Our operating systems. In the shift. From justification. To sanctification. We can't. We can't. Enter. Based on the spirit.
[26:49] And faith. And then. Continue. In the flesh. And by works. Of the law. Paul argues. That there's a continuity. That must be maintained.
[27:01] And so he says this. Just as justification. Is through finding. An alien righteousness. That is a righteousness. From outside ourselves. That comes. And becomes ours.
[27:13] So. Sanctification. Also. Is based on. Not what we have. Inside of us. But an alien power. A power. Outside of ourselves.
[27:24] The spirit. Of Christ. Comes to live in us. Just as justification. Is by faith. And not by works. So. Sanctification. Is by faith. And not by works.
[27:36] We trust in God. Not only to bring us. Into the Christian life. Which we can't do. On our own. But to continue on. In the Christian life. Which we can't do. On our own.
[27:53] This continuity. Of paradigm. Is essential. To Paul's thought here. Just as we take hold. Of salvation. By faith. So we progress.
[28:03] In sanctification. By faith. By faith. Taking hold of things. That we can't do. For ourselves. Taking hold of things.
[28:13] That we cannot generate. Things that we cannot create. And so. In Trinity Baptist Church.
[28:24] Core values. Number five. The gospel. Is not. Simply the ABC. Of the Christian life. Life. But it is.
[28:34] The A to Z. Of the Christian life. So when we look. At chapter. At. Chapter three.
[28:45] Verse three. Of Galatians. The rhetorical question is. Having begun. By the spirit. Are you now. Going to be perfected. In the flesh. And the Galatians. Are going.
[28:55] Uh. Maybe. I don't. Yeah. I think. I don't. Paul is saying. No. No. No. It will never work.
[29:05] Oh foolish ones. Dear. Silly ones. Don't consider this. To turn from the gospel of grace paradigm.
[29:21] By embracing a fleshly pursuit of works of the law. Is to embrace the gospel of self effort completely. And it is foolishness.
[29:34] It will not hold. And this is. If. If you will remember nothing else from this morning. This is what I want you to take home today.
[29:46] It is only by faith. That we. Not only enter. Into. A life of Christ. But also by faith. We live out. This life in Christ.
[29:58] By his spirit. Their last few minutes. What does it look like? Practically. Practically. How do we begin to live.
[30:09] In this. Paradigm. Of the gospel of grace. Empowered by the spirit. Here. Two sort of.
[30:21] Broad thoughts. And then we'll get into an example. One way to think about this is that. To live. The Christian life. In this paradigm. Of grace. Is to preach the gospel. To us. Every day.
[30:33] Preach the gospel. To ourselves. To remember. We are sinners. Who have no ability. To deliver ourselves. Except in Christ.
[30:44] We must remember. We must remember. That our sin. Is a deep offense. From God. And we desperately need. God.
[30:54] To take care of this for us. We remember that. Even in our progression. To be a good Christian. It is not.
[31:05] That we will ever get. To sinless perfection. We will never. Be over. This side of glory. Be over our battle. Against the sin. And the flesh.
[31:17] The world. That seeks to draw us away. Into this paradigm. Of self-effort. And so we need to remind ourselves. To run. To the cross.
[31:27] Of Jesus Christ. To run. To our standing. In Christ again. Say. I am forgiven. I am redeemed. I am approved. By God. Because of what Christ.
[31:38] Has done. So we preach the gospel. Every day. As the means. By which we pursue. The Christian life. Another way.
[31:49] That it might be framed. Is. We live the Christian life. In a pattern of repentance. And faith. We repent. Of our greatest failures. Our grossest sins.
[32:01] The most deep sins. Our hidden sins. And our seemingly. Careless. Slight sins. We are constantly. Recognizing. These sin patterns.
[32:12] In our lives. And repenting of them. If you were in Sunday school. You would have gotten. A full blown hour. On what that means. But repenting. Turning away from. Acknowledging that it's wrong.
[32:22] And turning away from it. We also repent. Of our greatest righteousness. Our spiritual successes.
[32:33] Because. We are so tempted. To build our approval. On them. That even our greatest. Spiritual growth.
[32:46] We must repent of. When we begin to trust in it. As our standing before God. So we repent of our worst sins. We repent of our greatest. Greatest spiritual successes.
[32:57] To the extent that we. Depend upon them. For standing before God. And we look. We look in faith. To Christ. We look to him.
[33:08] For our justification. For our life. Our identity. Our hope. Our comfort. We find that we are made new. In him. And as we contemplate him. That is. As we meditate.
[33:19] On his characters. We consider. Who he is. And what he has done for us. As we consider. The breadth of salvation. That is in him. We are transformed.
[33:30] And increasingly like him. We look to him. Trusting. In the promise. That he who began. A good work in us. Will bring it to completion. In the day of Christ Jesus.
[33:43] We look in faith. That he will do in us. What we can't do. Ourselves. All right.
[33:54] Let's take this to a very practical example. Let's all agree. We want to read the Bible. What do you think about that?
[34:05] We want to read the Bible. We view it as God's word. We think that it's important. In our. In our pursuit of. Of a good Christian life. To know this. To do this.
[34:16] What happens. As we pursue. Bible reading. From these two different paradigms. If we pursue. Bible reading. According to our.
[34:29] Self effort. Self. Self justifying gospel. What does it look like? Well it looks a lot. Like a Nike commercial. Just do it.
[34:40] All right. We get a plan. We get a reading plan. Of what we're going to read. So we're not just. Carelessly running through the scriptures. We have a plan about. How and when we're going to do it. Where we're going to be able.
[34:51] To actually sit. And read our Bible. For a while. We might get one of those. Plans that we have. At the back. About how to read through the Bible. In a year. Whatever it is. We develop a plan. Of what we're going to read.
[35:02] When we're going to read it. Where we're going to read it. Then we set our alarm clock. We get up. And we just do it. And. At the core of it.
[35:15] In our hearts. We're thinking. I'm doing this. So God will think. Well of me. I'm doing this. Because when I read my Bible. God blesses me. When I don't.
[35:26] He doesn't. I do this. So that. I can become known. In my church. As that Bible guy. Who knows a lot. There might be other things going on.
[35:41] But this is what it looks like. When we pursue. Bible reading. In the flesh. Bible reading. Out of self effort. And here's some of our.
[35:52] Here's some of the consequences. When we succeed. We develop a smug satisfaction. That I know the Bible really well. And. Oh I'm so sorry. You don't know it as well as I do.
[36:03] Let me help you. We become condescending. Potentially. Patronizing. Possibly. Judgmental. What's wrong with them? Why can't they get up.
[36:13] And read their Bible in the morning? And maybe. More of us. Experience. The failure.
[36:25] When we try and read our Bible. We set our alarm. We oversleep. Or we. Get up and we. Plan to read the Bible. And then the newspaper's on the table.
[36:35] And we read that instead. Before we head off to work in the morning. Or. Whatever the causes are. Whatever the dynamics are. We. We fail. And we feel guilty.
[36:46] And we feel ashamed. And then. If we go through the day. And it's a hard day. We think. I wonder if God is punishing me. Because. I didn't read my Bible today. And if we keep failing for long enough.
[37:01] We might just stop trying. Because. What's the point of trying at something. That you can't. Do. And so you just stop reading your Bible altogether.
[37:12] Remember. Pretty miserable end. My fear is that it's all too true.
[37:25] I know it can be for me. But the gospel of grace. What does it look like? Well.
[37:36] Some of the things are going to look exactly the same. We get a plan. We get a reading plan. A plan for where we're going to do it. Et cetera. Et cetera. We set our alarm. And as we set our alarm. We say. Oh God.
[37:46] I cannot wake up. In this morning. Simply because. I will to do it. Many. Can you testify to that? I cannot simply get up. Because I choose to do it. I need your grace.
[37:56] To help me to do this. And then when you get up. And you sit down with your Bible. You say. God. Please help me to focus. My brain is all over the place. I am really tired.
[38:07] And I might fall asleep. God. Give me the grace. I can't do this without you. Confess that you can't understand it. Without the spirit. Helping you.
[38:17] To give you understanding. So that you're reading for profit. And then you read the Bible. And here's the thing. When you succeed.
[38:29] Your heart is filled. With great thankfulness. Deep joy. Because. You've actually done what you wanted to do. And you've recognized it. Only God.
[38:40] Only God's life in me. Only God's spirit. In me. Only his grace. Has enabled me. To do this today. Because in myself. I would be on the other track.
[38:52] And I would have failed. But here's the glorious thing. Even when we fail. Even when we fail. We confess it.
[39:03] We said. Jesus. You died for this. Failure. For this sin. This morning. When I didn't read my Bible. And I praise you.
[39:13] For the blood of Christ. That frees me from guilt and shame. And I praise you. For the gift of the spirit. That means that. I have hope. That I won't be stuck here. In this failure forever.
[39:25] I have. I have hope. Because you delight in me. And you want me to feed on your word. And I can pray in that confession.
[39:36] God awaken in me. A deeper hunger for your word. So that. Next time I won't. I'll get up. And I'll actually do. What I want to do. And then we do it again.
[39:48] But as we set our alarm. We say. Lord help me again. And we set our sights again. And we say. God. You can do this.
[39:59] I'm going to expect you. To enable me to do this. Because I know it is good. To read your word. And I know that you want. To help me do it.
[40:10] And then you live your day. Not worrying about. Whether it's a. Good day. Because you read your Bible. Or a bad day. Because you didn't.
[40:21] But you live. By faith in the spirit. By faith in the son of God. Who loved you. And died for you. So friends.
[40:36] Where are you this morning? As you do some. Soul searching. Not about Bible reading. Although if you want to choose that. As your template. You can.
[40:47] But which paradigm. Are you living in. This morning. How are you pursuing. The good Christian life. Because what I want you to see.
[40:58] Is when I listed those things. At the beginning of the Christian life. You could do most of those things. Out of either of these paradigms. The good Christian life.
[41:09] Includes. Bible reading. Spiritual disciplines. Moral character. Being a good family. Man or woman. Social concern. And activism.
[41:20] Theological depth. Good Christian life. Includes all of those things. But what I want you to see. Is what is truly distinctive. About a good Christian.
[41:31] So to speak. Is how. Do we pursue that. Do we live in the paradigm. Of the gospel of grace. That the God.
[41:42] Who gives us righteousness. Is the God. Who has given us the spirit. And the God. By whom we take hold of. In faith. And live it out. Or is it.
[41:56] Is it the gospel. Of self-effort. Yeah. God may be a Christian. And I'm trying really hard. To be a good one. What paradigm.
[42:09] Do you work with. My appeal to you. Paul's. Inherent appeal. In this passage.
[42:20] Is this. Look to Christ. Look to him. In faith. To live a life. That you cannot generate. On your own. By faith. Take hold.
[42:30] Of Christ's righteousness. That is ours. By faith. Take hold of. Christ's life. That now. Lives within us.
[42:42] By faith. Take hold of. The spirit of Christ. That now. Lives in us. Empowering us. As we depend on him. To become.
[42:53] To become. The man. The woman. That God saved us. To be. Let me pray. Lord.
[43:07] We praise you. This morning. Lord. Thank you. That you have not. Saved us. Only to leave us. In our own. Strength. But Lord. Instead.
[43:18] You have saved us. And changed us. And given us. All that we need. For life. And godliness. In Christ. You've given us. Your spirit. You have given us.
[43:28] New life in him. You have given us. Faith. That we might. Independence upon you. Become all that you have. Made us to be. Spirit.
[43:41] I pray this morning. That you. Would bring. Your searching. Convicting. Light. Into the corners. Of our lives. Lord.
[43:51] Reveal to us. Where we are tempted. Or where we have. Fully committed. To pursuing. Life in you.
[44:03] On our own effort. And Lord. We pray. That you would set us free. From that. That we might know. The freedom. That is ours in Christ. That you are going to bring.
[44:15] To completion. What you have begun. We pray these things. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.