Living by Faith

 

Text: Galatians 3:23-29

Focus: faith

Function: to help people see that loving others is living by faith

²³Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. ²⁵But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Good morning to the beloved of God!

I titled this message living by faith because that is an underlying theme to this passage of scripture.

Simply put, the OT law, or Old Testament is a bunch of rules designed to show what loving others looks like. But without the Spirit’s help people failed.

However, at face value, this passage of scripture is about who is included, or called part of, the family of God.

And the Apostle Paul makes a case throughout his writings that the real children of Abraham are the Children who are there by faith in God. He says that in verse 7 of our chapter.

Abraham was considered to be a just or righteous person because he feared God and lived his life trusting in God’s promises. Abraham lived by faith and that pleases God. Remember, faith, hope and love are the three pillars to our spirituality. And studying the life of Abraham will give us a picture into what living a life by faith entails. Hence, the title of the sermon.

Living by faith helps us love others.

So the reason why Paul writes this passage is to overcome some religious racism that had crept back into the Church. And it was simply that some Christians thought they were better than others.

And Paul writes this to remind them that in Christ Jesus, we are all part of God’s family. In Romans 11:17 he tells them that we gentiles are grafted into the family tree b y the Holy Spirit.

Paul makes the case that Israel is a spiritual nation, symbolically representing the Kingdom of God. God will bless Israel and those who bless Israel. But Israel is not the nation state anymore; it is the people who live their lives by faith in God.

It is sad in a way that he has to write this since Jesus said in John 13:35 that we will be known by the love we have for each other. And some Christians were not loving others equally.

So, how do we live by faith? We do it by loving others sometimes to the point of sacrifice.

Remember that faith is trust, or rest.

We trust God enough to go against the value systems of greed that control this world to living lives of faith whereby we share the love and blessings that God has given us.

God said to Abraham that God will bless him in order for him to be a blessing to the rest of the world.

And Abraham was a blessing. He taught us how to live by faith and trust that God will keep God’s promises.

And Abraham did it at great risk to his own life and that of his family.

I point that out because living by faith does not mean that we live lives without any risk, problems or struggles.

Sometimes they come through circumstances like physical ailments and we learn to find God’s peace in the midst of a trial. Sometimes they come because we took a stand for a cause that is right and it cost us something to be witnesses to God’s peace in a world that considers the mocking and humiliation of others to be a moral good instead of an indication of how far we have sunk.

God does not want us to be afraid anymore. He speaks in the passage about how the OT law didn’t succeed in causing people to love others as much as they love themselves.

That, according to scripture, is a function of the Holy Spirit as we allow the Spirit to lead us in our lives.

The OT law of judgment was full of retribution. The NT law of love is directed by mercy.

When I try to picture in the whole the life of Jesus the Nazarene, I think I can sum up his teaching with the verse from Micah 6:8: He has shown you, what is good and what the Lord wants from you: Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly with God.

The greedy system of this world tells us that we are here to accumulate more and more for ourselves as if somehow having more when we die and cannot use it is a moral good.

We are conditioned to believe it is a moral good.

And there is nothing wrong with money, we need it to function in our culture.

But as Christians, money is merely a tool to survive and bless others. We know that the love of money, not money, but the love of it, greed, is the root of all sorts of evil.

So part of living by faith is living in a community whereby we acknowledge like the early church did that sharing in community, like we do here at Painter Creek, is living by faith.

It was that sharing community that caused the early church to grow so quickly. They literally shared everything so that everyone had enough and they had extra to obey Christ by feeding and caring for the poor.

And when we read in our text that there is neither Jew now Greek, slave nor free, Male or female but all are one in Christ, we read the baptismal vows they made.

When joining the Christian community, the believers renounced racism -Jew or Greek- Sexism, -male of female- and Classism, -slave or free.

Believe me, this upset the ruling class and fierce persecution broke out against Christianity.

But it continued to grow because it is a planting of God’s Spirit. It cared for the least of these in obedience to Christ and was beautiful in the way that it gave the poor and the outcasts a chance to survive. Basically for them, living by faith was not hoarding wealth but sharing their extra resources to love their neighbor.

If the greatest commandment is to love God by loving others, then living by faith is living in a way that is attempts to treat everyone else as well as we treat ourselves.