Sermon Transcript:
Thank you.
I always
appreciate my pastors. I have the opportunity to pastor with about 85 pastors here in the El Paso region. We have churches outside of our region as well.
We actually have a church in Denver, in Fort Stockton, that's connect to us. Here, Las Cruces has a few churches that are connected to us. It's what the body of Christ is doing in El Paso, and we're so appreciative of that. But
I've been pastor, like a permanent pastor at churches. So this is they do things like this. But I didn't expect that. So thank you so much. It was a when we went through the run through this morning, that didn't happen, so I didn't know. I just I told brother. I said, Man, since announcements were so long, you know, I don't even have to preach this morning, right?
I'm going to be in Galatians chapter three, but I'm going to talk about the faith gospel, and I pray that Your faith has already been strengthened this morning through words of encouragement, through the music that we've heard.
So I want to ask you a few questions, because in our text this morning, Paul really challenges us with about five questions in these first few verses of Galatians, chapter three. But I want to ask you this morning, and I'm not asking for you to answer and respond.
But what is faith to you?
Just something to chew on before we get into our message. What does that really mean? And do you have faith?
Can you lose your faith?
How can you attain faith? How can you gather faith? Do you even believe that there is such a thing called faith?
When it comes to the gospel of Jesus, your faith is a prerequisite,
which means it's impossible to know God apart from faith is
he? A lot of people have been trying to study about God. I'm all for that. I've been to seminary. I studied about God. I've been to this class called systematic theology. We break down all these different things. Listen. I think you can study and I think it's well worth it,
but until you have that moment of crisis where you come into a faith relationship with Christ, it's impossible to actually know God
in that sense. See it comes to believing by faith that Jesus can save you from an eternal separation from a holy God,
that belief system comes with opposition today. So much opposition, because what society is telling us is there's no such thing as one faith. There's many faiths that lead to the same God.
We know
when we know the true God, we all know there's only one faith. Ephesians four explains that to it. I call Ephesians four one through six, the onenesses of God. There's seven of em in there, and he talks about the one faith.
And so again, during this time of
transition, it's so important that we keep our faith, that we make sure that we're on the right track, that we continue to stay close to God, because God is going to call a person to be your pastor, who knows when that is, but it's going to happen. And so during that time, could you imagine your pastor coming in his first Sunday, and it's filled, and everybody's excited, because your faith has been so fulfilled during the in between time, and you've continued to study, to live, to love God. And so I think what has happened a lot of times in people's faith is during the 1700s and 1800s there was this period called the Enlightenment age, you know, where we came to reason about everything. We even reason about God. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, and we do reason with God, but there still has to come a time where we take a step of faith out into the unknown to say, I believe what God is trying to teach me, what he's trying to tell me, and who I am in Christ. And so reasoning is not a bad thing, but it still has to lead us to a moment of faith Amen. We have to have faith
without our life and the act of faith, believe it or not,
we don't have a life.
We live for ourselves. We start thinking this all this is all. There is to our lives. Planet Earth is all. There is nothing outside of us. You see.
It. I don't know if you know this, but you actually live a life of faith, even if you don't have faith in Christ, because you went to bed last night expecting to waking up, wake up this morning, right? That takes faith. It is not guaranteeing that you're going to wake up in the morning. There's no guarantee of anything. But you went to bed believing that you were going to wake up this morning. You got in the shower. Well, some of you did this morning.
And without faith, most of you don't even know how that water turns on. You just turn it on. You expect the water to come out. You expect to get clean and do all that. That takes faith.
You actually got in your car and you opened the car door and you expected it to start when you came to that takes faith. Some of you may not have happened. You know, there was some there's some people missing. I'm going, Well, what happened? Maybe their battery went out.
You drove the church with faith that the car was going to get you to your destination, right? You don't expect anything to happen on the way here. You're sitting in a great seat right now, expecting that chair to hold you up when you sat down.
Some of us wonder, sometimes, with our size, you know, is the chair going to hold me? But we sit down with faith, going, I'm going to sit down, and I just expect it to happen.
You see, you probably don't think of your life as a life of faith, but it is everything we do in life is we just expect, we have faith that it's going to happen. And now you're here listening to your pastor, and you expect the pastor to deliver a message of hope. Amen, that's what you came here for. Your expectation is, Pastor, you're going to deliver something that's going to give me hope. So when I go home, even if the Cowboys lose, I still have hope, right? I appreciate you saying now, if you're not a Cowboys fan, Imma have to hold you down a little bit underneath the the water.
We were talking a little bit about that, and run through this morning and said, maybe somebody will get, have to held down a little bit. I said, Well, it depends on how much they're how many sins they have, you know,
we do live a life of faith. And so I say this today, and I say this with all sincerity and honesty, exercise your faith.
Don't be afraid to exercise your faith. Put it into practice. Take a chance. Take a risk. Examine who you are in Christ. What is faith to me? What does it mean? How do I attain it? And how do I live it out? And think about your life and say, How am I going to move forward
when you hear the word of God today, you need to have faith and believe that it's true,
because your eternity lies in the balance of what we hear this morning, you're going to be wrestling if you're here this morning, and you've never asked Jesus to be the Lord of your life. You've heard about Jesus, you've been toying with the idea. Listen, there's a spiritual battle in the heavenly realms going on right now for the for your soul. Listen, the world is battling for your soul because it wants to get a hold of your soul so that you don't turn to Christ. Jesus wants to get a hold of your soul so you do turn to that's called a spiritual battle. Eternity lies in the balance when we have a response to the gospel.
Just this morning, I'm on my way to the restroom,
young man stops me. He says, Pastor, you've been talking about sharing your faith. I said, Yeah, I got it right here. Let me text it to your phone, couple questions, a couple verses, a couple follow up questions. How we can make a difference in our life, and that's how we live out our faith. We teach others how to share the gospel as well. Because, listen, I don't know if you know this, but about 85% of Christians will die and go to heaven with never sharing their faith one time.
So you're telling me, Pastor, only 15% of people share the gospel with other people. Yeah, you see a lot of times we just expect our pastor to do all the work. We just bring him to church, and they just hoping that they listen to the pastor and listen to the gospel. But you're with them more time than I am. You have to have make sure your faith is being exercised so that you have an opportunity to share the gospel. So I want to read our text this morning. Galatians, chapter three. Stand with me. I'm going to read from the New International Version. We're going to read verses one through 14.
Galatians, chapter three, verses one through 14.
Now, if you don't have a Bible, use your phone, use your tablet, whatever, but I want you to take it out so you can see the words for yourself. And that's what I mean by making sure that God speaks to you. You see first, John 127 second, John 127 says this,
you have the greatest teacher in the Holy Spirit when we open the Bible, he's the one that teaches us. Well, I want you to see for yourself what God is asking of you this morning, you foolish Galatians. And there's an exclamation point there, you foolish Galatians who has bewitched.
You before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard?
Are you so foolish after beginning by means of the spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?
Have you experienced so much in vain? If it really was in vain?
Verse five, so again I asked, does God give you his spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law or by your believing what you heard.
So also Abraham believed in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand, then that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Now I want you to listen, hear that this morning, because you have faith, you're now in the lineage of father Abraham. You see, we sang that as kids, Father Abraham has many sons, and many sons have father Abraham. But do we really believe it? As adults, if you have faith this morning, you're in the lineage of father Abraham. God said you would have seeds that are endless in this world. And we all come back to Abraham, verse eight scripture foresaw that good would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance. To Abraham, all nations will be blessed through you, so that those who rely on their faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. Clearly, no one relies on the law
is justified. No one who relies on the law is justified before God because the righteousness will live by the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, it says the person who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. There's a lot in there. We're going to break it down this morning, Father, we thank you for your time to even bestow Your blessing upon us, and so this morning, would you bless us as we try to understand what you're trying to teach us this morning by faith in Jesus name, I pray amen. You may have a seat
the faith gospel.
My first point is, when you have faith, you have belief. When you have faith, you have belief. Now in verse one, Paul starts off with a doozy of a question by asking and challenging our faith and our system, who has bewitched you?
The Holman Coleman or the Holman Brodmann Version says who has hypnotized you? The New Living Translation says Who has cast an evil spell on you, and the message says, who's put a hex on you? You ever seen somebody do that to you?
Hey, you're sick like that's
going to help, right?
Paul is saying, when we go away from the very Gospel we place our faith in
and our beliefs in, we're being led astray by the world of ungodliness and the world of evil. He's leading us astray. Sometimes the Scripture can be very harsh, right? Paul's never afraid to say what needs to be said. And sometimes we need to hear that, right? The harder, the better. Sometimes, the more effective that we are getting convicted by the Holy Spirit. You see, when our faith is challenged, when we start dabbling in things that are not of our faith, we can be led down that, that awful Road, straying away from who God is. So I believe there's so many people that probably wish they were in church this morning, or some church this morning, not just here at Life Church, but in church in general, especially those who truly had a genuine faith in Christ
and now have become complacent about their faith, people are still blaming covid for people not coming to church.
Listen,
I understand covid was awful. I understand people died because it was going on, and El Paso led the nation in covid deaths. I get it,
but that's when we needed God the most.
Unfortunately, we didn't know what to do. We took the advice of people that weren't living their lives by faith. Listen, I reopened my office, and I got a lot of flack from a lot of people.
And I and I told churches to go ahead and reopen in May of 2020,
and I got a lot of people that called me a path. How can you do that to us? I said, Listen, during this time of crisis, we need Jesus. We go to Sam's, we go to Walmart, syllabus, the mall, there's not even a parking to be found, and yet, church is the most contagious place. Give me a break.
We need Jesus.
People have fallen away. A third of the church has not come back from covid.
A third
they've said, now, I'm just going to watch online. I'm sure there are people watching online right now, hopefully just because they're not unable to come, or they're out of town or something, we've become complacent about our relationship with Christ, and that's where Paul is asking us, who's bewitched you, who's cast a hex on you? Why have you been falling away? What's going on in your life?
Maybe it was a choice given by their parents in all sincerity. You Know What Mom and Dad sometimes say, Well, I don't want to force my religion on my kids. I'm going to let them make their own decision. They can't even decide what shoes to wear, and you're going to let them decide what Jesus to follow.
Why do you think God put you
to be a steward of your child, for you to lead them in the path they need to go. They are in a time of confusion right now and being taught everything else. Don't leave it up to your kids to make a eternal decision. Help them with that eternal decision, because I can tell you they're not going to make it for Christ, because the whole world is telling them he doesn't exist. He's not real. It's not the way we do it. Parents, please lead your children in the way they should go. Please. Because they are bent towards this world. They think that's all this, this, all there is to this. It's natural for us to do that. It's natural for us to be against God.
We are born into an evil world. It's where we live.
So I ask the question again, who's bewitched you? Who's taught you these things? Who's told you that not God? No way. It didn't come from the Bible. You've been learning them on your own. You've been relying on yourself. So what happened to loving God and loving people without conditions. You see, we look at the second part of verse one, Paul also says, Jesus was clearly portrayed. He was clearly shown for who he was by sending himself and his son. God sent His Son to the cross, and He died for you, and he bled for you, and he did it in public.
It was no secret meeting that they had. People could see from afar what was going on. I don't know about you, but what I sense from this verse is a false teaching on whether or not the crucifixion was actually real.
Who's bewitched you? Did you not see Jesus for real? Did Jesus not come into your life? What's happened to you? Church? What happened? Man, why are we keep blaming? Why are we the victim? We're not the victim. We're the victors. We have Christ in our life. And here's Paul talking to the church, going, Hey, what's going on? Man, lady, we can reason it out our own minds that it's impossible for us to have that faith. I can't do it. Pastor,
there's no way that Jesus died for my sins and was risen from the dead to forgive me my sin. No way. Why would he do that for me?
Last week, we were in Fort Davis,
and we got to go up to the McDonald Observatory. If you've never been there, go.
It's a three hour drive from here. Most people don't even know about stuff in West Texas. And we went, and they weren't open, but the way it's positioned and where it's at there's you can see stars on every side.
And as I was reminded of how great God is I looked up and I just thought to myself, why would he even care?
He's so majestic and so amazing, and here we are as sinful people. Why would he do this for us? Because I was trying to reason it out with him, even as a pastor, and I thought because He loves us, because he knew we couldn't do it on our own. And I just thought, thank you, God for sharing your creation with us. Beautiful
Paul reminds us that this god we're talking about doesn't require human reasoning. Oh,
just think about it now. Don't think about it. Have faith. Oh, I just No, you have to believe.
And I'm not telling you that we just do it blindly. We get to learn about who God is, and we have faith that way. Of course, it's difficult to grasp the idea that Jesus actually died for your sins. Of course, it's difficult to grasp somebody being raised from the dead, because it doesn't ever happen. You.
I get it. Don't allow human reasoning to bewitched you in the confusing your faith.
Verse two, Paul asked another question,
Did you or did you not receive the Holy Spirit when you responded to him?
Interesting question, right?
Because he goes on and he starts saying, Are you relying on Holy Spirit? Are you relying on yourself? Is God a God of faith, or Is God a God of works?
You follow a certain protocol to be in Christ? I think the answer of that is a rhetorical question. Of course, we don't. Our faith comes through, believing from the Word of God, and what we hear
Romans, 1017 says this, and I want you to hear Romans. 1017
consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ,
how many times does he say hearing in that verse? Two times
Faith comes by hearing and the message is heard.
If you don't think that's important to understand, we come hearing the message, the word of God, and because we heard the word, we can have faith in Christ. That's how it happens. Faith is about hearing,
not just hearing anyone or anything, but by hearing the voice of God, hearing the Holy Spirit, speak to you.
Do you hear him this morning? Are you listening for him,
or is other things going on in your mind and heart? Are you trying to reason it out with him?
Don't do it.
Our response to him is because he initiates the connection. It's always him. The key to the word is Christ. Always listen to preachers who are willing to bring the Word of Christ to light so you can believe
we don't need TED Talks.
Listen, if you like, listen to pastors ramble on about their shopping at Home Depot
or at their kids being at a soccer game. I'm not saying those things are bad, but if that's the highlight of the sermon, we've got problems. Illustrations are nothing but a means to try to highlight the word of God, not the illustration. That's what illustrates the Word of God. You see, this is what's going to change us. Is when we cling to the love letter that Jesus has written towards us, that's what's going to change our life. Illustrations are great,
but they can't be the meat of the message.
The Bible is where it's at. That is where the faith gospel looks like you believe in what the Word of God says on its own. Paul saw some of the followers just trying to go after venues of different Jesus's in verse three, Paul asked another rhetorical question, are you so foolish?
I think Paul, what are you getting at man who's bewitched you? Did you really receive the Holy Spirit? Are you such a fool? I was thinking, man, where's he going with this? You know, if he were here today, he would probably say something like, Are you kidding me,
or really, come on,
come on, bro. I don't
know how many times I hear that a day. I tell you I got young people all around me all the time, and there I was saying, and I'm like, Are you guys barking or what's going on there?
I know it's a slang version of bro,
if it was the Spirit of God that saved you and led you to be a Christian, why are you trying to put your own spin on it? Now it's basically what Paul is trying to teach us this morning. Why are you adding to the gospel of faith? Paul says, Are you trying to do this Christian thing on your terms? Now it's okay to do these things even though they go against what I've been taught in the Bible. I'm going to tell you a little secret. God will never condone something he's condemned.
You guys might want to write that one down. He's never going to condone something that he's already condemned. So don't tell me, gay marriage is okay. It's been condemned. He'll never condone it.
Do we love them? Of course, we love them. We don't We love without prejudice in our lives, because we want them to come to a true repentance and a true relationship with Christ. He cannot condone something that he said was wrong. He's not going to applaud you for going, man, you figured out the secret of Scripture. You don't have to follow it. Now. What
since when
verse four, Paul asked about our experiences as believers. He says, When you're walking in faith and God is at move in your life, there's nothing like it. It really is not. Why do we fall back to our old nature when God has been so good to us? Why has he been good to you today? Has.
He been good to you this week.
Listen, I just drove all the way to Weatherford, Texas to do a funeral for one of my good friends. We left here last Sunday, got in the car and drove, and the funeral was on Monday, because Friday, when we were coming back from Fort Davis, they asked, I was asked if I would come and do it. This guy went to us with on our youth mission trips, and he was such an amazing servant of God. I was like, of course, we'll go
my I was exercising my faith,
and it was such an amazing time to see old friends,
but I wanted to be reminded again of why we spent 10 years serving at that church,
because God was there, and these people were serving Him, and we wanted to reconnect and say and we wanted to rejuvenate our faith, even though it was a long drive, the statement that Paul says and we Why do we fall back when God has been so good to us? Why
it was Jesus, and only could be him. In verse five, Paul asked one more time, and it's a worthy question of being asked,
Who will you give credit for the miracles that have happened in your life?
You or Jesus?
Did you do it? Or did he do it?
So in the first five verses of Galatians three
these are the five questions that he's asked. Who's bewitched you?
How did you receive the Spirit?
Are you a fool? How do you explain your experiences? Who's
going to receive the credit for the miracles in your life?
Yeah, I would have been silent too if Paul was right here asking those little questions. I'm being like, Dude, I thought we were doing good.
Paul says, Really,
man, not from what I see, not from where I stand. Because in verse six, Paul gives an example of the way we really should have our faith. And he says, Abraham believed and God delivered.
Wouldn't you like that to be said of your life,
that you believed and God delivered?
Isn't that a beautiful thing? You believed and God delivered you believed, and God delivered you believed, and God delivered, all you had to do was believe, and God's going to deliver it this morning. That's the that's the anthem is, will you believe so that God can deliver
so let me get let me take you to that passage that talks about this, Genesis, 15, four, four through six. Genesis 15, four through six,
the word of the Lord came to him talking about Abraham, this man
will not be your error, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your error. He took him outside, and he said, look up at the sky and count the stars.
You see what I'm saying.
If you indeed can count them, then he said, so shall your offspring be? And
that's what I was feeling when I was looking at all those I was like, Why do you even care?
You're so amazing and so majestic and so beautiful. How can you go and put yourself on a cross and die for me? Abraham believed the Lord, and it was credited him as righteousness.
Abraham believed and God delivered.
When we're seeking God in a sinful world, we must continue to recall all the things God has done, all the good things that he has done, all the blessings.
If not, we're going to be led astray. We're going to the first little thing that comes along will mess your faith up, and all of a sudden, you're doing things that you thought you would never do.
How's your faith today?
I'm not talking about yesterday. I'm talking about today. How's your faith today? I'm not talking about last week. How was your faith today?
Or I should ask this, how would you like your faith to be?
Wouldn't you like to just be like the most faithful person on the planet?
That'd be hard, wouldn't it?
You can though. You can put everything before God, every decision that you have to make and be a faithful person. Do you still believe that the gospel has the same power that it once had?
You see, I knew new believers are fun to be around because they're so excited about what Jesus has done in their life. Mature believers can be some of the most sour people I've ever met on the planet. Well, you just don't know, Pastor,
I've been sitting here for 30 years, and I said, there's your problem.
We have a volunteer QR code, scan it and get to work.
They're some of the most sour people,
because whatever has happened in their life, they're blaming God.
Don't you remember? Why do you think in Psalm 51 when David messed up with Bathsheba, he says, Restore unto me the joy of my salvation.
It, Psalm 51 read it for yourself. You'll get a restoration like you never would believe. My second point is, when you have faith,
you have blessings in verses seven to 14, the term blessing is so overused today, right? Oh, I'm so blessed.
Oh, you just don't know. I just signed a two, $40 million contract. So blessed. That was, that was exact, exact words,
and I thought,
which just a lot of people talking about being blessed today. They're not even religious people,
and a lot of times, even as religious people, we, we coined the phrase blessed to be connected to finances. Well, if you're blessed financially, you must be a blessed person, right? That is not. There's no finances mentioned in these verses.
Blessed means holy or consecrated. It's to be held in reverence. That's what the word blessed means, holy and consecrated to be held in reverence. I think a lot of times people refer their blessings today in a monetary way. Don't misunderstand me, God can bless you that way. But that is not all. There is to blessings. After questioning. Verses one through five, Paul reminds us of our great blessings. When you have faith, you have blessings. And verse seven, he says this,
When you place your faith in God, you are automatically in the lineage of Abraham, automatic. Do
you know that? Do you believe that?
Maybe you don't quite grasp that totally today, look at verse eight. The Bible told the story of salvation in advance to all people. Is what the verse says. People would come to faith in God because of what Abraham did.
What did Abraham do?
Abraham took his son, Isaac, and he laid his son on an altar before a holy God, and he says, I give my son to you
and and that was a preview of what God would do with his son. God laid His holy Son on an altar, and he says, I give him to you. And he says, that's the lineage that I'm talking about. You're in that lineage now. God's promise to Abraham was one of that was prophetic. And he said this one thing. He said, All nations, which nations?
All of them, not some of them.
You mean even, yeah, even those other ones that we don't think. Because if one day, everybody's going to stand before a holy God give an account for the life that they live, they're going to confess that Jesus is Lord. They're going to bow the knee, and they're going to be in a shock when they're going to say, but I never believed. And he's going to say, I already knew that. And we've got some people to say, Well, I did say that I believed, but I really didn't live it. And he said, I renew that too.
Nations would be blessed through Abraham. Abraham probably walked around a few weeks before he told anybody. I just thinking about, how would Abraham even grasp that he takes his son and he does this, and it's like the ram was provided for him, and he had that he had to sacrifice an animal, and yet his son lived through that. And they walk around, and I'm probably thinking he's probably saying, Boy, don't, don't say that. We don't even know really what happened. The mystery of God's statement to Abraham to be one of those double takes when he says,
you're righteous,
wow.
Because it was God.
It was all God. He Abraham, trusted God. Don't you want to have a faith like that? Don't you want to be able to say, I put my family on the altar of who you are God, and I entrust them to you. I can't make them do anything,
but I can coerce them,
evangelize them, share the gospel with them, teach them, but it's still up to them to come to Christ. But we don't just leave it alone. We help them. You see the prophecy the Bible comes alive in your life, in your life when you give yourself to him on the altar. In verse nine, we are blessed through Abraham. In verse 10 Paul basically is, if you want to try and earn your way, the blessings and eternal life, you won't be successful, is what he says. That is what makes the faith gospel of Jesus so impressive to me.
I have a I have to place the control of my life and the control of God. How
many of y'all are control freaks here? You know you are. You know you think you have to be in charge of everything. I'm one of those. I've had to try to, how do I release that to you? God, how do I not be in control and just say it's up to you. God,
I can't clean myself.
Enough for you. God, I'm too sinful.
You'll never accept me, receive me. That's what that's his job is to clean you,
right? Why you think when people go fishing, they catch the fish and then they have to gut em and take all the gullies out of there, right?
What could you imagine? We went fishing, and the fish came up on shore, and he was already gutted for you, all cleaned up and ready to go.
Be like Man, this fish must have been dead already.
You see, we do the same thing.
We think that we clean ourselves before we come to Christ. It's the other way around. We come as nasty and dirty as we are, and God cleans us. He's the one that slices our guts open and pours out all that sin that we had in our life. And he says, I'm going to clean you up and take care of that so you'll be good for the grill, right? Or whatever you do with your fish today, you can become an error in the lineage of Abraham by a total surrender of you and your family to God. And say, God, I want to do it today. See, it's so clear in verse 11 that only by faith does someone come into a relationship with Jesus and Abraham sacrificed Isaac. He had the faith that God would provide the lamb of God, or the sacrifice for his sins. He went there knowing that God was going to do something miraculous, blessing. You see in Genesis 22 six through eight. This is what happened
Genesis 22 six through eight. Abraham took the word wood for the burnt offering. He placed it on his son, Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.
And the two of them went on together. Isaac, who's the son, spoke up and said to his father, Abraham, Father,
I couldn't imagine
how that came out of his mouth. I could just imagine him being trembling and scared, wondering what is going on. And he says, Father.
And Abraham says, Yes, my son,
the fire and the wood are here.
Isaac said,
well, where's the lamb for the burnt offering?
And Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering. My son and the two of them went on together.
We don't have to completely understand everything to obey God, because I can tell you, Abraham probably didn't have a clue how that was going to happen,
and yet he did it anyway.
And see, in verse 12, when we say we follow Jesus, we live by faith. That's the the part that the law can't provide for us. We can try to fulfill our lives by living up to the law, but it doesn't happen. See in verse, verse 13, it provides us with the Mosaic law based off Deuteronomy. 21 the law that said that we were to be punished by death and we'd be cursed by God and placed on a tree for public display for alls to see. So that would be a deterrent for others not to do sin against God. That was what this verse is talking about, that they would actually place you in a public place to say, that's what it looks like to be disobedient to God,
and yet he didn't do it. Jesus became the curse on our behalf when he went to the cross himself in a public display.
Verse 14, Jesus redeems us through Abraham,
so we too could claim all the blessings God has in store for us according to his riches and glory. Amen, according to him. See, when we have faith in Jesus, He gives us the promise of the Holy Spirit. So we aren't making decisions based on our own understanding.
Proverbs, three, verses five and six lean not on your understanding, but on his understanding so that he could make your path straight, so you could live this life.
One night, a house caught on fire, and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below outstretched hand, calling to his son, and he says, jump. I'll catch you.
He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke and blackness, as you can imagine. He was afraid to leave the roof, and his father kept yelling, jump, I'm going to catch you. But the boy protested, Daddy, I can't see you. The father replied, but I can see you, and that's all that matters.
God sees you this morning, and that's all that matters. He's asking you to take a leap of faith. He's asking you to exercise your faith. You see when we can't see God, he's asking us to jump
he's asking us because he sees us.
Yes, even when we can't see him, even when we don't know he's working, even we don't understand him, he sees us. So I want to ask you this morning,
are you blessed, according to the description I said, Holy and concentrated, consecrated and set apart for God.
Have you been blessed by receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Listen, we do this every every Sunday, we give an opportunity for you to respond in faith by coming with everything that you are, knowing that you don't deserve salvation because of all the things that you've done in your life that you have. You need forgiveness from him and him alone. And so when we say, would you come to the altar? We know that these are wooden kneelers. This is a place where you can place your arms on we understand that somebody made these.
It's what we call our makeship offer altar. When Abraham went to the altar and he brought his son,
Abraham, or Isaac, asked the question, where's the wood?
I mean, you have the wood in the fire. But he said, Where's the lamb?
Could you imagine him thinking, is is it me?
We don't have a lamb here. We don't have anything. It's a sacrifice. And Isaac says God will provide. And so I'm asking you this morning, if you'll come, God will provide. That's what faith is, and that's the cool thing about salvation and a life in Christ, is nobody can say that's not true, because you know it is. You've been hearing the Word of God, listening to the message, so that you can understand how to receive Him as your Lord and Savior. So this morning, as we sing the song, and if that's you this morning, even if you're afraid and there's somebody here with you, grab their hand and say, Would you go with me?
Would you go with me and pray, I want Jesus to be real in my life. And you may be here this morning and you've never really exercised your faith. You may have a relationship with Christ, but that's as far as it's gone.
We we sometimes call that fire insurance, and
what that means is, at least we're not going to hell, right? And that's the extent of your faith. I just want to go to heaven and be with God. I really don't know about living that life. Why don't you reconnect with God and say, God, I want to know that life. This morning, you can come and say, I want to reconnect God. And I know nobody's praying with you. You're praying on your own. But afterwards, we have some people that will be in this there's a little prayer room. When you walk by on the right, it's got glass door or glass windows,
there'll be people in there that you can talk to them about the decision that you've made.
See, it's very important that we follow up with you so we can help you on this journey.
Nobody's ever called to be a lone ranger Christian.
You're not called to live this life alone. Why did we come to church? Because we need each other. We need the encouragement from each other. We need to see what it looks like to be a follower of Christ. And so this morning, if that's you, if you want Jesus in your life to for the first time, ask him, and he will deliver
for the for those that want to reconnect, you come, and maybe you're here, and you heard this morning, Pastor, you're going to do baptisms here in a few weeks. Yes,
baptism will not save you. It won't even give you a good bath.
Baptism is a decision that you make after you've asked Jesus to be the Lord of your life. It's in a step of obedience to say, I want to tell people about that new faith that I found, and so maybe that's you. This morning, you say, Pastor, I want to sign up for baptism. I'll meet with you personally to teach you what that means. See, there's a lot of things going on right now. When we're wrestling,
don't let the distractions get away from you. Keep it focused on Christ, come to Christ for the first time, for reconnection, for baptism. And maybe God's calling you to a higher calling, maybe even ministry. Maybe God's asking you to go to an unreached people group to share the gospel.
You see, churches have forgotten about those, what we call altar calls, for missions and ministry and all of that. And so this morning, I'm asking you, maybe God's doing something spectacular in your life and you want to connect that way.
This altar is open for whatever God wants to do in your life. Let's pray, Father, we thank you for this opportunity that we've had to come and worship you this morning in spirit and in truth and Father, as we sing this song,
I pray for Your Holy Spirit to move in the hearts and in the legs of those that need to come in Christ's name, I pray Amen. You come. Amen.