Gospel Thoughts that Christians must Think

Galatians chapter 3. We have been doing a verse by verse series to the book of Galatians, and we got away from that during the month of December for our series on postmodernism, but, beginning today, we're coming back to Galatians, and as we come back to our study of this book, we arrive at Galatians chapter 3, verse 1, and my goal this morning is to cover verses 1 through 5, and the title of the message is Gospel Thoughts that Christians Must Think. Gospel thoughts that Christians must think.

Let me begin with a story that I read this week in the news.

there's a guy named Reggie Damon, who lives in Norwich, Connecticut, who on Saturday of last week, he was walking with a friend of his down a sidewalk and they were about to part ways. Reggie wanted to give the guy his phone number. so he can get a hold of him and he fished around for some paper to write his phone number on, couldn't find anything, so he looked around and there was some litter on the ground. So he reached for a strip of paper and he picked it up and he wrote his phone number and then tore off the edge of that and gave it to this guy and then they parted ways.

Well, Reggie noticed after the guy walked away that After he had torn that piece off, that it was actually an envelope that he had picked up and had written the phone number on, and he noticed that there was something in that envelope that was now protruding out of the edge where it was torn. So he pulls out the item that was in the envelope and to his complete shock, there was a check for $185,000. Well, Reggie began to immediately contemplate what to do with this, and it did cross his mind to try to figure out some way to cash it.

He was not a wealthy person.

He had a minimum wage job, 47 year old guy, minimum wage job on food stamps, and he's looking at a $185,000 check. Well, he ended up deciding to do the right thing. And he found out, saw who the check was made out to, and he ended up contacting, contacting the bank that the check originated from. To make a long story short, he ended up finding out and getting in contact with the person the check was written out to on Monday of this week.

They met at the bank and he returned this $185,000 check to the rightful owner. The rightful owner was so grateful for this $185,000 check that was returned that he gave to Reggie a $50 bill. I know that blows you away, but That's not why I share this with you. I share this with you because of a detail about the story that I have not mentioned yet.

As I mentioned, when Reggie looked at that check, it crossed his mind, man, this could pay a lot of bills and pay my rent and a bunch of other stuff for a long time. But when he was being interviewed by the news media, the reporters asked him, Did you think about keeping it? He said, Of course I did. And they said, Well, why didn't you keep it?

Why didn't you try to cash it? Why did you return it to its rightful, why did you return it to its rightful owner? And Reggie said, because as I looked at the check, I kept thinking about the words that my mother had spoken to me many times as I was growing up. You want to hear the words.

Here are the words that Reggie's mom spoke to him and taught him. If you take something, you lose 3 times that amount. And if you do something good, something good. It comes back to you.

And the only reason I cite this is because In a moment of ethical decision. Reggie thought. of something. He remembered something and thought upon that, and that gave shape to his decision.

I was sharing the story with my family during one of our family devotions this week. And I was telling our kids, what, Reggie didn't know when he got up that morning that he would be faced with this dilemma. With this opportunity to do good or evil. And the truth is, as you walk throughout your life, you never know what a day may hold and whether a moment like that, a significant ethical moment arrives and confronts you, and you can go one way or the other.

And in that moment, It doesn't matter. What anybody has said to you, it doesn't matter the sermons you've heard. It doesn't matter the amount of the Bible that you have read. It doesn't even matter in that moment the amount of passages that you have memorized.

You could be an I want to quiz champion, having memorized hundreds of passages. None of that will have much effect. Not nearly the effect as this What will shape your decision at that moment is what you choose to remember. And think about consciously.

As you are thinking about your decision. And what you choose to think about in that moment will give shape to the decision you make, whether you go in the right direction or the wrong direction. I began with that this morning because this is exactly the scenario that the Galatian Christians found themselves in. They're in a situation that they didn't ask for, they didn't expect, and they have an opportunity to go one way or the other.

And the truth is, they're beginning to go the wrong way. And the reason that they're going the wrong way in their decision making, we're going to learn from our passage today is precisely because they were not thinking about things that they should have been thinking about, things that they knew and had heard from Paul, but they were not thinking about those things at this critical moment, this crisis of faith in their lives. They had been running well. they love God, they love the gospel.

They were believing in Jesus for their salvation, trusting in Him alone for the forgiveness of their sins. They loved the apostle Paul, they would have plucked out their eyeballs for him. They were experiencing a sense of blessedness and the Lord running well, as I mentioned, and then all of a sudden, some people come into their lives who begin to tell them, it's OK that you believe in Jesus. That's good.

But you must also be circumcised, if you really want to be saved. And I know you think you're saved right now, but you're really not saved yet, because you have not yet been circumcised and done these few other things. Well, the Galatians are extremely unsettled by this. look at the terminology in the book of Galatians.

Paul uses the word for disturb a couple times, which means to be agitated. It speaks of something that's being shaken back and forth and up and down. in a state of upheaval. They're very upset inwardly.

imagine you go a few years thinking that you're a genuine child of God, loved by God, a saved person, and then someone comes into your life and says, you're actually not saved because you haven't done these extra things. they're agitated over this. They've lost their security, their assurance of salvation. They're troubled by this.

They're unsettled by this. Paul uses the word bewitched, a very powerful word in chapter 3, verse 1. It's like they're under a spell of this false teaching about the gospel that they have been exposed. they've been hindered.

They've been tripped up as they were running well and so things are not going well in their personal lives and inwardly, inwardly they're agitated, very upset, and in a state of upheaval about what they're going to believe, and they've lost their assurance of salvation. And guys, what happens when you lose your assurance of salvation? When you lose your sense of peace, in the Lord, the blessed assurance that you're a child of God, what happens? You get cranky, right?

And they're getting cranky. In fact, it's now this agitation inwardly is spilling over in their relationships with other people. In fact, Paul in Galatians 5:15 says, You are biting and devouring one another. They're turning on each other.

Husbands and wives are turning against each other, and they're not getting along like they used to. They're not loving each other and forgiving like they used to, and parents are biting and devouring their children and children biting and devouring their parents and church leaders are biting and devouring one another, and biting and devouring the people. And it's an absolute mess in these Galatian congregations, even in their relationships. And why?

Because there was an assault on the gospel at the very core of it all, that got them unsettled and moved away from belief in the gospel. what, even if all these false teachers had come around and done exactly the same thing, The Galatians didn't have to be so agitated and messed up as they have allowed themselves to be. They could have responded beautifully and stayed settled in the gospel if and only if they would have used their heads and thought, gospel thoughts that Paul wants to direct them to in verses 1 through 5.

In fact, Paul in our passage today twice accuses the Galatians of being unthinking people.

He uses the Greek word. For no thinking. In fact, look at this in chapter 3, verse 1. He says, you unthinking Galatians, he's not faulting them for thinking wrongly.

He's faulting them for what they're not thinking, the right thoughts that they should have been deliberately thinking and recalling to mind. And then in verse 3, he says, are you so unthinking? His problem with the Galatians is that they're not thinking. The gospel truths that they should have been thinking on.

And this alerts us to the fact, guys, that there's actually 3 states of mind that we can be in as believers. I don't know if you've known this, but there are 3 states of mind that we can be in as believers. The first state of mind is the state of mind of thinking rightly. All right.

Hopefully, we're there a lot where we're deliberately, actively thinking biblical gospel truth that keeps us on the right track. But there's another state of mind, and that is a state of mind of thinking wrongly. And I've been there even this past week, where I'm just thinking biblically wrong thoughts. But there's a third state of mind.

And that is a state of mind of thinking nothing. We're just plain not thinking about what we should be thinking about. And often the state of thinking nothing is what usually transitions us from thinking rightly to thinking wrongly. It doesn't happen often that we're just actively thinking rightly and all of a sudden we just start thinking wrongly.

What usually happens is we're thinking rightly, and then we just stop thinking rightly, and we're just thinking nothing. We get up in the morning, we don't spend time in the word. We don't rehearse the truth to ourselves and We get up, we read the paper, we start about our duties, and one thing leads to another, and we've just been blah mentally thinking nothing and then suddenly a wrong thought introduces itself and we're vulnerable. Because we've been not thinking, and that was the problem with the Galatian Christians.

Paul is going to say to them, basically, if you guys had been thinking about these gospel thoughts that I am going to draw your attention to, you would have been spared this agitation and the Turmoil and the damage that has been done. Now, very quickly we're going to be looking at 4 gospel thoughts that Paul wants to draw the Galatians' attention to, saying you should have been thinking this, and I'm going to help you start thinking this right now because this will get you back on the right track.

But it's interesting how Paul does this. Paul does this by asking questions.

In fact, all of verses 1 through 5 is just a bunch of questions. There's no statements. They're all questions, but the questions are a rhetorical device. That is designed to direct their attention to certain truths that they should have been thinking about.

Parents, what this is like. Sometimes you ask your children questions because you actually want an answer. Sometimes you ask them questions because you just want to make a point, right? It's a rhetorical device where you might say to your child after they've done something really dumb, you might say, What has gotten into you lately?

Well, you're not expecting them to say, Well, actually, upon careful consideration, there's 3 things that have No, you, you're just trying to make a point that you're messed up right now. There's something wrong with the way you're acting, and the way that you are thinking. And we might also say to them, what, after they've done something, wrong, we might say to them, Didn't I tell you yesterday? Didn't I warn you?

And we're, we're asking these questions, but they're leading questions that are a rhetorical device to direct their thoughts to what they should have been thinking about then and what we're wanting them to think about now. How many of you parents ever do that? All right, a few of you And children, those of you that have parents, don't from now on think that every time your parent asks you a question, that it's a rhetorical device. son, did you clean your room this morning?

Hm, that must be a rhetorical device. So I don't need to answer the question, no. there are questions they ask that you need to answer, but sometimes they're trying to direct your attention to what you should have been thinking about and what they're wanting you to think about now. Well, that's what Paul does.

He is like a disgusted parent in this passage with his hands on his hips, and he is just asking them one question after another, and his intent is not to get literal answers like he says in verse one, You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Paul is not expecting to get a letter back. Saying, now Paul, our answer to question one, you asked who has bewitched us. We just want you to know it's a guy named Bob and a guy named Gary who, who've been bewitching us.

That's not Paul's intent. His intent is to say you've been bewitched, and you have bought into evil, sinister lies. And so let us look at the questions that he asks and let us allow these questions to direct our minds also to the gospel thoughts that they should have been thinking that would have spared them the trouble that they are in. Thought number one.

That they should have been thinking about long ago that they lost sight of, but Paul wants them to think about now is this, and that is that Christ was crucified so that we might be saved. He's saying E Galatians should have been riveted on this truth. You should have been thinking this truth when people came along and told you some other gospel. You should have been looking at and contemplating the reality that Christ was crucified.

So that we might be saved. He says in verse one, you unthinking Galatians, who has bewitched you? You before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Paul says, I know you've not had poor teaching, because I was there among you, and I put Christ crucified front and center.

In my teaching, I always held Him before you in a very public graphic way. And I remember when I preached the gospel of Christ crucified to you the very first times, and I remember how you understood it and how you were mesmerized by this incredible story of a God who loves you so much that he would be willing to come into this world and die so that you might be saved and brought into relationship with Him. You were spellbound. You were awestruck.

You were captivated by this crucified One who gave Himself so that you might be saved. And you of all people, because of this should have been immune. To some homely gospel coming your way saying, well, you need to be circumcised to be saved. Paul is saying if you had been fixing your eyes upon and thinking about Jesus and what he did so that you would be saved, you would never ever think to add anything to that.

what guys, even of the 4 thoughts that I'm going to give you this morning, if you fall asleep in just a couple minutes and you don't even hear the next 3, if all you get is this one, And if all you do is daily, just you're contemplating and thinking about and enjoying the reality of this one who died on the cross for you, you will be spared so much heartache and agitation in your life and in your relationships. Think about it. as you're gazing at the cross and thinking about that, there's a number of benefits that accrue to you.

Number one, you will always Be humbled by the gravity of your sin.

You look at the cross and see this perfect spotless one who died so that you might be saved. You should look at that, and one of your thoughts should be, well, my sin must really be that bad if it would require the slaughter of the perfect Son of God that I might be saved. See, you would be humbled by that. You'll always be humbled gazing at and contemplating the cross and being humbled by that and understanding the magnitude of your sin.

When you look at the sins of other people, you'll see those in a different light because you see yourself as one who sins were so grievous that they required the death. of the Son of God, but also by looking at the cross, you will always be overwhelmed by the greatness of God's love for you, right? Wow, my sin is bad, but greater love has no one than this, than that one do what Jesus has done for me. He laid his life down for me so that I might be saved.

And people gazing at the cross are never saying, man, I just don't feel like God loves me. I just, Lord, can you give something in my life, make something happen that affirms your love for me. People gazing at the cross don't ever need to ask that. Because God demonstrates his own love towards us every day at the present time, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died in the past for us.

That is God's ongoing permanent demonstration of the greatness of his love. Get your eyes on the cross if you are questioning or doubting the depth of God's love for you. But, another effect, another benefit will come to you if you just keep the crucified one in front of you. And that is this, that as long as you are looking at Jesus and what he has done, and giving himself over in death for you, you will always see the ridiculousness.

Of any thinking, wherein you might think that you should contribute something in addition to what Jesus did. You guys get that? think about it. You needed to be saved.

Jesus said, what, I'll make a donation towards your salvation. Well, what donation is that, Jesus? I'll donate myself. Jesus is infinite in all of His attributes.

He is the second member of the Trinity, absolutely infinitely holy, righteous, just, good, and pure in every quality you can imagine, and this infinitely awesome, holy, righteous being donates himself towards our salvation. And he says, Here's what I'm going to do so that you'll be saved. I'm going to allow myself to be arrested, punched, and slapped in the face and spat upon and blindfolded and mocked and ridiculed and a crown of thorns placed on my head and beaten down with a rod into my brow.

I will allow myself to be tied around a great stone and lashed with a vicious cat of nine tails time after time after time.

I tearing the flesh from my body, so that by my stripes, you may be healed. I will allow myself to be nailed and hanged naked upon a cross and utter shame before a mob of people who are insulting me. I will bear your sins. I will give my whole life over in death, so that you might be saved and become a child of God.

How can you look at that, all that Jesus has done, donating his infinite self to your salvation? How can anyone look at that and say, Well, that's great, but I think there's something I need to add. To this. No one would ever think that if they're gazing.

At the infinite donation. Of Jesus giving Himself for our salvation. And if you're gazing at the cross, if the Galatians were gazing at this, and the Judaizers come along and say, Hey, you need to get circumcised and do this and this and this to be saved, the Galatians, they would have been totally unmoved by it. They would have said, Now that's a homely gospel.

That doesn't even make any sense. That defies reason. When I gaze at the cross, what you're saying is, is ridiculous. But it's because the Galatians had taken their eyes off of the cross, and they weren't thinking this gospel truth that they were vulnerable to this very homely gospel that was homely and ugly by comparison.

You go through the book of Galatians, Paul is obsessed with Jesus and the cross. in the body of the letter, how does it begin in chapter 1, verse 4, the very first truth out of his mouth is Christ gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us from this present evil age. That's the first truth he states, Christ gave, and what he gave was himself. Over in death, chapter 2, verse 20, Christ loved me and gave himself up for me.

Verse 21, Christ died. Chapter 6, verse 14, Paul says, but may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says, you want to talk about my salvation? I'll be happy to talk about my salvation.

And I'll be happy to brag about my salvation. But the only thing I will ever boast in, is in the cross, in Jesus, And in his infinite donation towards my salvation. You say, Paul, man, you've done a lot of good stuff. You've planted churches, you've done a lot of good deeds, you've healed people.

You've written scripture, man, if anyone's got something to contribute towards their salvation, you do. Paul would say, I have nothing. The only thing that saves me is this Jesus, who donated Himself on the cross with this infinite donation. And in that, and that alone, I will boast You talk to people nowadays.

If you died today and stood before God at the gate of heaven and God said, Why should I let you in? What would you say? And people are a dime a dozen who'll say, Well, I, and they start rattling off their good deeds. boasting in their good deeds.

Paul would say, I would stand before God, and I would boast in one thing, and that is Jesus and what he did, so that I might be saved. Paul kept the cross in front of him. The Galatians didn't. And so the Galatians got suckered into a homely gospel.

And Paul through this question, this rhetorical device, directs their attention to this first gospel thought, and that is that Christ was crucified so that we might be saved. There's a second gospel thought that they should have been thinking about, and Paul wants them to start thinking about. And that is that we were initially saved by faith in Christ, not by our works. Paul is actually wanting the Galatians to go back to their conversion day.

we sang a few minutes ago, I still remember the day you saved me. You remember that? it is actually good to go back to the day that you first believed in Jesus. and Paul actually is going to encourage the Galatians to do this.

And to remember the fact that from day one, we were saved by faith alone in Christ alone, and not by any works of righteousness that we did. He says in verse 2, this is the only thing I want to find out from you. Did you receive the Spirit? In other words, in the past, on the day of your conversion, when you did receive the Spirit, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

Go back to that time that you were converted. What happened when you received the Spirit? Did you go around and do a bunch of good deeds, and then get the Spirit? Or did you just hear and believe what you heard?

All you did was heard and believe what you heard. And you received the Spirit. And by the way, when Paul says receive the Spirit, I wish we had time to linger over this, but we don't. I'll just say generally speaking, every single gospel blessing in your Christian life that you could name for me, I can probably show you a passage that clearly demonstrates that those blessings are mediated to you through the Spirit.

The Spirit, everything, the love of God and strength and power, to know God, experience God, to have access to the Heavenly Father through prayer is through the Spirit, giftedness to serve, relationships with one another. In Ephesians 4:3, Paul speaks of the unity of the Spirit that we enjoy companionship and help in our weaknesses. The Spirit helps our weaknesses. And prays, with us and for us with groanings that we could never be capable of uttering.

The Spirit bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God and have children heirs of eternal glory in heaven, on and on the list can go. When Paul says, on your conversion day, you receive the Spirit, he's meaning everything. Because when we receive the Spirit, everything came along with that. And so go back to your conversion day, contemplate what was given to you, the glory of what was given to you on that day.

Did you earn that in any way, shape or form? Or was it not freely given to you? Just because you heard? And believed what you heard.

We see this demonstrated in Acts 10 and 11. You think about Cornelius and his household, a bunch of Gentiles who were not Christians. They were not saved. Peter comes to where they're all waiting for him, and Peter begins preaching to them about Jesus, who died and who was raised from the dead on the 3rd day.

And then Peter says this to those that are gathered. Gathered in Cornelius's home, Peter says of Jesus, all the prophets bear witness that through his name, everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins. Verse 44, while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. And that word listening is the same word translated here in verse 2 of Galatians 3.

And Peter explains this in Acts 11. He says, as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them. God gave to them the same gift as he gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus. So let me demonstrate this.

Here's how the people at Cornelius's house got saved. They were sitting down This feels good, by the way. They were sitting down. And they were listening, and Peter speaks of Jesus, who died, who was raised from the dead.

Then they hear Peter say that through his name, Forgiveness of sins comes to all those who believe in his name. They hear that. And they say, by believing in His name we get the forgiveness of sins. And they think to themselves, I believe.

And suddenly, they received the Spirit. They were just sitting down. They didn't do anything else. They just heard and believe what they heard.

And they got saved. That's all it takes to become a child of God and to receive the Spirit and all of the incredible blessings that come through the Spirit of God. All you have to do is hear and believe what you hear regarding Jesus. Amen.

And what we tell, we can say that to lost people, Hey, this is all you got to do to be saved. I believe in Jesus. Believe what you're hearing as I share this with you. We say that to lost people.

But what Paul is telling the Galatians and us that even after getting saved, you need to tell this to yourself. You need to go back to your conversion day when you yourself were sitting down, and you simply believed and maybe uttered that in a prayer, but you heard and you believed and you received by faith, and not by any works. Years after becoming a Christian, don't ever forget that defining moment in your life, and all the stuff you got instantly for doing nothing, except hearing, and just believing in your heart, what you heard.

We should never forget that.

The Galatians forgot that. They stopped thinking about that. They stopped remembering the day that God saved them. They forgot the mechanics of how their salvation came to them in the first place, by faith and not by works.

There's a third gospel thought that they had failed to be mindful of and And that is this. Here's what they should have been thinking. Not only was Christ crucified so that I might be saved, And not only was I initially saved by faith and not by works, but they should have also been thinking this, that we should continue trusting in Christ for complete salvation, not trusting in our works. Look at this verse 3.

Are you so unthinking, having begun by the Spirit, in the way that I just described, you simply heard and you believed and you received the Spirit. That's how it got started. Having begun by the Spirit in this way by faith, are you now thinking to be made complete? Through the flesh, doing deeds of being circumcised and whatever else that people are telling you, the upshot of what he's trying to say to the Galatians is this, Don't ever forget your day of conversion.

Don't ever forget how you got all this salvation stuff in the first place. It was simply by faith, not by works. And the reason you should not forget it is because what you did on that day. Just banking your trust on Jesus and what he did.

That is the standard for what you need to do every single day. Just keep doing that what you did on the first day, keep doing that every day. That's how you become complete in Jesus. this has happened to me and I've also heard people even in this church share this.

That, someone comes to know the Lord and man, they love God, their sins are forgiven, they're blown away. And sometimes they're the most excited people in this congregation. And it's a blessing to see them and to rub shoulders with them because it makes you excited about, some of these realities that sometimes we get too accustomed to. but then that individual maybe years later, will say to me, what, I, I don't have the joy I used to have.

And man, when I first got saved, I was really excited, and now I've just, I, I, I miss those days. Because I'm not, I'm not enjoying my salvation the way that I did then, and I wish I can go back. what the devil does? As soon as we believe in Jesus, he doesn't say, Oh, well, I got defeated.

I'll go pick on someone else. As soon as you believe in Jesus by faith, and you get all this free stuff in Christ, the devil starts to chip away at your faith, and he begins to say, on a good day, he'll say, Man, you're doing really great. You've read your Bible every day over the last 7 days, and you have prayed and you've been a blessing to other people. God must really favor you.

Because you're doing these things. And you're like, and I'm like, well, yeah, yeah. Or on a bad day. you get the message.

The devil breathes this into you. Don't you dare go trying to talk to God. In fact, he's ticked at you, doesn't want anything to do with you. Don't even think of going to Him and asking for anything because he's hot over what you have done.

You haven't read your Bible. You snapped at your children this morning, and how dare you? And And we're like, Oh, you're right, you're right. And day by day he chips away at our faith and we look back on our conversion day and maybe the months following that and we're like, man, I wish I could go back to that.

what Paul is saying to the Galatians? Go back to that. Remember what you did on the day that God saved you and gave you this free salvation. You just simply believed in the finished work of Jesus.

You believed in his infinite donation. And that was all that was needed. And you rested your confidence in that you heard and you believed, and you got all this stuff in Christ. And what, what you did on that day, keep doing that every single day.

If you've moved away from that, go back to that and start doing what you did on day one. You knew on your conversion day you couldn't save yourself. You knew you couldn't make one iota of a contribution to your salvation or to the enjoyment of God's favor day by day. You knew that then.

You knew those basic things. Go back to that and keep doing that. Continue trusting in Christ for complete salvation. Don't trust in your works.

Just for the shortness of time, let's go to the 4th gospel thought that Paul is wanting them to think about. And that is this. Not only was Christ crucified for our salvation, not only were we initially converted and saved by faith and not by works, not only should we continue trusting in Christ for complete salvation, not in our own works, but the fourth Gospel thought the Galatians should have been thinking is this, and that is that God favors us daily, because of our faith in Christ, not our works.

look at what he says in verse 4.

Did you suffer or experience so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain. Verse 5, so then does he who present tense provides you with the Spirit, and present tense works miracles among you, does he do those things by the works of the law? Or in other words, because you've done the works of the law?

Or does he do those things in response to the fact that you simply heard and believed? And he's wanting the Galatians to go, well, even my daily blessings wherein I experience God's favor, and his blessed working in my life, even that I haven't earned day by day. God's favor and all the manifestations of it. But that comes to me simply because Christ earned that for me, and I have put my confidence in Him.

Again, on your good days, please don't think you are under God's favor because you've been good that day, because the minute you believe that, the rug's going to get pulled out from under you, and you're going to mess up royally, and then you're going to feel like I lost his favor, OK? but on your bad days, don't ever believe the lie that you have lost God's favor because you've messed up somehow. If you're a genuine child of God, you are always under the gracious favor of God.

Now that doesn't mean that he doesn't care about your sin.

He does see your sin and care about them. And he grieves over them, but he favors you so much he'll send chastisement into your life to bring you back to the truth. But even that's a sign of His love and favor. God favors you the same amount every single day regardless of your performance, because Jesus earned that favor for you, and you have put your confidence in Him and His infinite donation towards your salvation.

He speaks of miraculous works among the Galatians. Apparently there were miracles happening, miracles of healing. And provision and spiritual miracles, works of power, literally is what this reads, works of power among you. And, and, and just think about this, guys, real quickly.

When Jesus was on earth, he did hundreds of miracles, right? What was the only thing he ever asked for from people to do those miracles? I see people mouthing the words, just speak it out. Faith.

That was all. That's all he ever asked for. It's just, in fact, on one occasion, he said, Do you believe I can do this? Oh yeah, I believe.

And then he did it. All he ever asked for was faith. On no occasion did someone come to Jesus and say, Jesus, can you heal me of my blindness? And Jesus says, Well, yes, I will, but here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go do 5 good deeds. And at the conclusion of the 5th good deed, you will find your sight instantly restored. Never does he put any duty or requirement on anybody to go do some work of righteousness. All of his miracles were free, and all he ever asked for was faith in Him.

And so even in our life from day to day, God works in our lives. Sometimes I have blown it so bad, and then some blessing comes my way and I'm like, Oh my goodness, I can't believe this. I so do not deserve this. And yet God is lavishing His favor upon me.

This is crazy. This is incredible. But it makes me, it melts my heart, and it makes me want to love Him. More and be more holy.

God's favor has already been purchased by the perfect Jesus. And it never changes from day to day. And on our good days and bad, we must always believe that all of God's works of, of power, and as he richly continuously gives to us of the Spirit of God, that all of that comes to us in the form of His favor, because of our faith in Jesus, and not because of any works that we have performed. If the Galatians would have just been thinking these thoughts, Christ was crucified so that I might be saved.

I was saved initially in the first place by faith in Jesus, not by works. I should continue trusting in Christ for my full salvation, not in my works. And God favors me every single day, the same every day because of my faith in Christ, not my works. If they would have been thinking these gospel thoughts.

They would have been immune To the heresy that came their way, but because they were unthinking and stopped thinking, they were vulnerable to the error and to all of the agitation and damage that was done to them personally and in their relationships. I want to ask you to bow your heads. Guys, this is what I want you to take away today. Number one, stare at the cross.

Keep it in front of your face. You will be protected from from error, from agitation, from loss of assurance. You will be affirmed in God's love. And then also just think, be a thinking person who deliberately, actively chooses to think certain thoughts.

When you get up in the morning, you choose to think certain gospel truths, and you base your day upon those things. If we are a thinking people thinking on these things. We will experience the blessings that come from the gospel and be protected from the agitation and the damage that comes from error. Our Heavenly Father, we just thank you for the gospel that it is not just something you give to us on our conversion day, and then we move on to bigger and better things.

But it is a gift that you give to us every day. It is a gift that keeps on giving. You want us every day to go to the gospel and open up that package and enjoy what is inside. You want us to think gospel.

Every day To keep our eyes on the cross every day. So that we might come into the fullness of what you have for us in Christ. And be protected from heresy. And from the damage that comes From wrong thinking.

We have much to learn. And as we continue through this passage, Lord, just help us to even pick up the loose ends that we've left today and, and really just gain from this book and from this chapter, everything that you have for us. But above all, may we fall in love with Jesus and never tire of gazing upon Him and His infinite donation of Himself on our behalf on the cross. Thank you, Lord.

We say these things and ask these things in Jesus' name. And all God's people said,