Scripture: Galatians 3:1-9   
Sermon Series: Galatians – Set Free, Live Free – Sermon 07

What’s your favorite fairy tale? What’s your favorite fairy tale with a witch? Let’s see how well you know your fairy tales with witches. Raise your hand and share the title. (Gummi Worm prizes).

Every fan of fairy stories knows to expect the worst when a wicked witch turns up. In the original Brothers Grimm version of Sleeping Beauty, when the celebration of Princess Rosamond’s birth is gate crashed by a wicked witch, we know bad things are about to happen. This witch, annoyed that she’s not been invited, casts an evil spell on the princess — when she’s 16, she will prick her finger on a spindle and die.

Thankfully, a good fairy is on hand to weaken the spell. Instead of dying, the princess will just fall into a deep sleep…but the spell has been cast. Princess Rosamond is now living under a curse from which she cannot escape. So even though the King and Queen banish all spindles from the land, the inevitable happens. In a room in the castle on her 16^th birthday, the Princess stumbles across an old woman with a spindle and the Princess pricks her finger. Immediately, she and everyone in the castle fall asleep and they stay that way for 100 years. A thick hedge of thorns grows up around the castle, preventing anyone from getting to the princess and freeing her from the curse.

Until that is a handsome prince from a faraway kingdom hears of her plight and resolves to rescue her and break the spell. He heroically fights his way through the hedge of horns and enters the castle. He finds the sleeping princess and then does what no man should ever do without consent, he wakes her up with a kiss, freeing her from the curse and restoring blessing to the kingdom.

Then, they get married and live happily ever after.

It’s a classic fairytale ending. Galatians 3 shows us that being under a curse isn’t something just in fairy tales. It’s something we face. When we’re confused about the gospel, it could be we’ve been “bewitched.” Bewitched means to be “under an evil influence” or “charmed by error.” Paul uses that word used to describe what’s happening to Christ-followers in Galatia.

Galatians 3 is Not a Fairy Tale, but it ends better than one. Because for the one who commits his or her life to Christ, we don’t live “happily ever after.” It’s so much better. We live “happily forever after” and that’s no fairy tale.

In Galatians 1 & 2, Paul shows us how we become Christians. The gospel is much more than just salvation. We’re not only saved by the gospel, we also grow by the gospel. But false teachers were saying that you’re can only be saved by works and you can only please God by works…and the Galatians were buying it. They were bewitched.

As we continue our study of Galatians, please turn to Galatians 3:1-9 (p. 914). “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 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? 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? 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—just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” If you’re taking notes…

1. When you’re being conned about the gospel, vs. 1. 

Have you ever been conned? One of the greatest con artists in American history was George C. Parker. After the Brooklyn Bridge opened in New York City in 1883, Parker saw a tourist admiring it, so he decided to try to sell it to him. It was so easy, he decided to sell it again. Over a period of years, Parker averaged selling the Brooklyn Bridge twice a week to unsuspecting tourists. He sold it for as little as $50 and for as much as $50,000. He convinced the buyers they could make a fortune charging a toll. He would produce official looking papers to sign the deal. Several times police had to stop the “new owners” from erecting toll booths on “their bridge.” Parker was arrested for fraud. In 1928 he was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Sing-Sing where he died. But not before selling the bridge again to at least two other prisoners and a prison guard!

How can people be so gullible? Today people are still falling for scams. Here’s the biggest one. People are taught you have to do good works or obey, as in Galatians, the Old Testament Law to be forgiven by God. They’re being conned. The Bible teaches that salvation is God’s FREE gift. That’s the gospel.

These young believers in Galatia are being conned that the gospel isn’t enough, that it’s the cross plus obeying Old Testament Law. Paul wants to get their attention, so he makes three powerful appeals.

Foolish. Have you ever been told you have an ID10T issue? Have you ever had a computer problem and realized you forgot to plug it in? That’s an ID10T issue. Paul tells the Galatians they have an ID10T Issue.

The New English Bible translates it, stupid. Phillips is stronger, O you dear idiots. They’re fools. They’ve wandered from the truth. Salvation is a free gift you can’t work for. Paul’s bluntness is intended to jar them.

Bewitched. The term is pregnant with meaning for first readers of this letter. A “spell” was cast on someone back then by giving them the evil eye. Believing good works were part of salvation was like they were victims of an evil spell. Paul seems to suggest there’s Satanic influence.

Satan doesn’t want anyone to believe the gospel, that you can’t work for your salvation. Jesus died to fill heaven; Satan lies to fill hell.

It’s an attractive, even seductive lie. Have you noticed how attractive witches are today? Charmed or the witches in Wicked. When in reality because they’re evil, they’re hideous. False teachers/preachers who add works to salvation are evil and hideous.

Have you had this experience? You share the gospel. It’s like the person is blind. Satan blinds people so they won’t see truth. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4: “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Publicly Portrayed. It’s a wordplay that was obvious to the Galatians. It’s an advertising term. It highlights the contrast between Paul clearly proclaiming the gospel with the secretiveness of false teachers. Publicly portrayed means to put it out there like a public announcement or by posting a placard. Paul verbally painted a picture about the cross. It was like he posted a billboard announcing Jesus had died and paid the debt for sin.

The gospel isn’t secretive or mysterious. God wants us to understand our sin debt is paid and that we must accept salvation by faith. You must trust God and His Word. But false teachers say, “It’s too easy” and add to the gospel.” One of Satan’s favorite strategies is to distort God’s truth so badly people can no longer tell the difference between the gospel and all Satan’s distorted lies.

2. When you’re being conned about living the Christian life. 

Dean Gunther is a tattoo artist in Manchester, England. A client came to him with a bold idea. Gunther was so stoked about the idea, he did it for free. His client hated working out, but wanted to have the look of well-toned, “six-pack” abdominal muscles. So, he asked Gunther to tattoo a six-pack onto his stomach. Once completed, they shared the six-pack-tat on TikTok. As one viewer summed it up with: If you can’t tone it, tat it.

A fairy tale taught in the Church is that while we depend on Christ for salvation, once saved, we can improve ourselves. The Bible teaches that we can’t save ourselves and we can’t sanctify ourselves. It’s just a “tattoo” of a growing Christian life, and that was the Galatians.

They were as helpless to grow in grace on their own, as they were to save themselves on their own. Someone wrote: Too many Christians have bought into the ‘Old Adam Improvement Society.’ We adopt the attitude of, ‘Well, if I try a little harder, I know I will be what the Lord wants me to be.’ It’s foolish, yet many of us try to do it. We can’t live for Jesus in our own strength. The Galatians knew they’d been justified by faith alone. To keep them from attempting to obey the Law to grow in grace, Paul appeals to their spiritual experience.   

Often the best way to wake someone’s conscience is to ask questions. An accusation hardens the will; a question pricks the conscience. To shake them spiritually awake, Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions.

A question about initiation – Did good works bring God’s Spirit into your life? “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” (Galatians 3:2). Paul asks: How did you become a Christian and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit? The answer excludes the Law. It’s “I became a Christian and received the Spirit by faith.”

You become a Christian by placing your trust in Christ and the cross. At the moment of salvation, we’re indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is a free gift.

Did they receive the Spirit because they were circumcised or kept the Law? No! The Holy Spirit never takes up residence in our lives because we’re good. Here’s how radical this is. In the Old Testament, before the cross, no one was indwelt by the Spirit permanently, but New Testament Christ-followers are.

After the cross, the Holy Spirit enters our lives when we receive the gospel. We’re not saved by doing but by believing. There are only two options – achieving or believing. You don’t achieve the indwelling of the Spirit. We become Christ-follower when we trust Christ. The Law says, “Do this.” The gospel says, “Christ has done it all.” The Holy Spirit enters our lives because of faith. Every believer is indwelt by the Spirit. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him (Romans 8:9).

A question about completion – Do good works bring spiritual growth or sanctification?Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). The answer is, “No.” We continue in the Christian life the same way we began, by grace. Now that God has kept this promise and given us the Spirit to live within us and transform us from the inside-out, it’d be foolish to reject Him and rely on our own steam to get the job done. We’re saved by faith, and then we grow spiritually in the same way. We grow and progress by the Spirit working in our lives and put our full and complete trust in Christ in every area of our lives.

Listen to John Piper: “The essence of the Galatian heresy is the teaching that you begin the Christian life by faith, and then you grow in the Christian life by works, that is, by drawing on powers in yourself to make your contribution to salvation. One modern form of the heresy is: “God helps those who help themselves.” Faith is the only response to God’s Word which makes room for the Spirit to work in us and through us.”

The essential mark of a Christian is not how far you’ve progressed in sanctification, it’s instead what are you relying on to get there. Are you striving for sanctification by faith? Please understand, Paul is not saying that we should passively sit and do nothing while we wait for God to change us. Effort and work in the Christian life are evidence that one is truly born-again.

The issue here is how are we going to change. Paul says that the power to change doesn’t come from within us; it comes from the Spirit. It still takes effort, but it’s a grace-driven effort. You continue the Christian life the same way that you started: by grace through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re saved by God’s grace, and we grow by God’s grace.

A question about perseverance – Do good works enable you to endure suffering? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? (Galatians 3:3). When you live the life of faith, sometimes you suffer. Old friends don’t always appreciate changes taking place in your life. Some are convicted and make life difficult. Some try to get us to go back to our old ways.

The Galatians were suffering for their faith. Paul had reminded them in Acts 14:22, Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

Keith Mannes a pastor in Michigan, talks about a little apple orchard his wife’s aunt had at her home. One year when they paid her a visit, Keith couldn’t help but notice the huge harvest of apples. The branches were filled, some actually cracking with the weight of all the apples. Never in many years had anyone seen such a harvest. When he asked his wife’s aunt why, she told him the previous year there had been a late frost in the spring and all the buds froze. When that happens, an apple tree does a marvelous thing. It stores up its energy. All that energy pulsates until the spring of the following year and, Bam! You have an explosion of buds as the tree unleashes all that energy.

That’s the way it is with life in the Spirit. Sometimes a harsh frost comes along in life: cancer, divorce, death of a loved one, some other crisis, and your heart freezes. That’s not the time to stop trusting Jesus. Instead, it’s the time to depend on Christ, even more as His spirit pulsates under the cold times in the gnarly bark of our lives ultimately to make us even more fruitful.

Warren Wiersbe says it well, “When you are in the furnace, your Father keeps His eye on the clock and His hand on the thermostat.” Some of you sitting here are in the furnace today. My friend, you can trust the Father.

A question about the miracle of salvation – Do good works bring about salvation? 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 (Galatians 3:4). Paul turns from the past to the present. God not only gave His Spirit to the Galatians, He also worked miracles in their midst as a result of their justification. The word for miracles refers to inherent power or ability.

He may have been referring to the miraculous events God had worked among them at salvation, or to the spiritual power over Satan, sin, the world, and human weakness through the Spirit’s power. He wants the Galatians to recognize the source of the Spirit’s on-going ministry. Is it by faith or works?

He then reminds the Galatians of the generosity of God in their lives. Supplies means to give generously. It was used in ancient times to describe someone who paid for an entire chorus to provide background music at a play. It’d be like hiring the Milwaukee Symphony to play at your wedding reception. That’s how God supplies His Spirit to Christ-followers. It’s extravagant!

This is vital. The more we’re convinced of the greatness of God’s power, the less we’re inclined to depend on our own strength or resources. If God is gracious and great in power, believing is all that is required. We don’t improve ourselves. It’s all of grace and all God. Salvation is the beginning of God’s life-long transformation in the lives of His children.

3. Faith in God’s plan of salvation is too wonderful to be a fairy tale.

“Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:6-9). If we still don’t that justification is by faith without works, Paul pulls out a trump card. Like a courtroom, he brings up the Jewish patriarch, Abraham, as his star witness.

Abraham was their George Washington. For Cheeseheads, he was Vince Lombardi. Talk to a Jew, and if you want the example of their heritage, their ultimate go-to guy is Abraham. He’s the father of the Jews.

Paul uses Abraham’s faith to blow away their strawman of circumcision and works, asking “How was Abraham counted righteous? Because of his circumcision?” No! Genesis 15:6, [Abraham] believed God and based on that alone, it was counted to him as righteousness. Paul’s point was that if circumcision was necessary for salvation, why was Abraham circumcised years after he’d been declared righteous by God because of His faith. His circumcision had nothing to do with his salvation. Works have nothing with with spiritual growth. Yet, it’s not just Jewish false teachers, it’s today…ot’s in the “Church.”

Paul zeroes in on the biggest mistake about Christianity. Christianity isn’t about being nice. It’s about being forgiven. This is why we have the wrong idea about how to grow in the Christian life.

If you ask most people what the Bible is about, they’ll tell you it’s about how to be a good person. If you ask about the stories of the Bible, they’ll tell you they’re stories showing how to be a good person. The Bible becomes a how-to book of morality with examples of people we should imitate.

That’s a fairy tale. This passage in Genesis that Paul quotes about Abraham reveals that it’s not about doing good works. Abraham wasn’t saved because of anything he did. He wasn’t saved because of good works or circumcision. He was saved the same way that we’re saved, by grace through faith.

Abraham was a mess like we are. He was a chronic liar and a bigamist. It was only through faith he was counted righteous before God. Only because of his faith in God, faith in the Messiah who was to come, did God forgive him and declared him righteous. It was all God with Abraham and it’s all God with us.

Paul uses an accounting term. When you go to the bank and cash a check, that money is counted to you. It’s deposited into your account. That’s what happened to Abraham. He wasn’t saved by depositing his good works. He didn’t have any. God gave him, or to use the theological term, imputed, His righteousness to Abraham’s account. Abraham was bankrupt spiritually. All of his checks were bouncing. Because Abraham trusted God, God deposited His righteousness into Abraham’s account.

Abraham was saved when he trusted God. His faith was counted to him as righteousness, though he wasn’t righteous. He was saved exactly the same way we are, by faith in God’s grace, not by his own righteousness.

There are not two ways to get to God. There’s only one way. It’s through faith alone. We must have faith if we’re going to belong to Abraham’s family. Remember, Paul is writing to Gentiles who are being pressured to do good works, to become Jewish and be circumcised, if they want to be saved.

Paul says, “It is those of faith who are children of Abraham.” It’s not circumcision that makes you a spiritual child of Abraham. It’s not good works, whether the ten commandments or being baptized as a baby or an adult.

The truth is that there are many who do lots more good things than we’ll ever do BUT they’re not forgiven or part of God’s family. Faith makes us part of Abraham’s family. Our right standing before God comes from believing what God has given us in Christ. We’re not saved by what we do; we’re saved by what God did and trusting God. That’s the only way to be forgiven.

You and I are the fulfillment of what God promised Abraham, In you shall all the nations be blessed. We get in on that blessing by joining Abraham’s family. Those who have the same faith as Abraham share in the blessings of Abraham. Faith was, is and always will be the only way to be rightly related to God. Not a halfhearted faith, but an “I’m all in” faith.

Conclusion

Let me end with a story that’s not a fairy tale, though it sounds a lot like one. It’s a great example of what it means to be declared righteous.

It comes from the life of 18^th century astronomer William Herschel who’s famous for discovering the planet Uranus, but Herschel had a checkered past. As a boy growing up in Germany, he loved listening to military music. Eventually, he joined a military band but when Germany went to war, he found himself marching into battle. He was totally unprepared for the horrors of war. During an intense period of fighting, he deserted his unit and fled. The penalty for desertion in those days was death. He fled to England and started a new life, studying science and astronomy. Eventually, he became a famous man, renowned throughout Europe for his musical abilities as well as his scientific discoveries, including the discovery of Uranus.

William Herschel had left his past behind him, and for many years, gave little thought to the death sentence that hung over him. But then, in Britain, King George took the throne. King George the 3^rd knew the secret of Herschel’s past. And one day Herschel was summoned to appear before the royal court by King George. With great trepidation, Herschel arrived at the palace. He feared the worst, especially when he was told to wait outside the throne room.

Finally, one of the King’s servants arrived carrying an envelope. Inside the envelope was a handwritten note from the King. It said this, I King George the 3^rd pardon you for your past offenses. Herschel received a royal pardon, though he was guilty. He was acquitted. He was declared innocent by the king and justified in the eyes of the law.

But that’s not the end of the story, because the letter went on and as well as acquitting him, the King was also going to bless him. He was given a knighthood and appointed to be the Royal astronomer. The King also made him a member of the Royal household. William Herschel became a personal friend of King George.

Paul says something similar happened to Abraham and happens to all those who put their faith in Jesus. We’re given a royal pardon and welcomed into God’s forever family. Though we’re guilty, God treats as though we’re innocent, and we are because Jesus paid for our sin debt.

When we trust Christ and His cross for our salvation, we’re pardoned by God and restored to His blessing. God gives us the gift of His Spirit. He gives us the gift of His righteousness. We don’t need to do anything else to secure our salvation because of Jesus we’re guaranteed a happy ending.

In contrast though to the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty, the Brothers Grimm original version concludes with these honest words, “And they lived happily ever after as they always do in fairytales, but not quite so often, however, in real life.”

We don’t hear that in Disney and we can’t guarantee that our lives will be happy. If though we put our faith in Jesus, we can be guarantee that we’ll be blessed, based on the promise of God.

Jesus came to free us from the curse of sin and restore to us God’s blessing. For those who put their trust in Him, there’s a guaranteed happily ever after.

My friend, have you trusted Jesus? Have you trusted the gospel that Jesus paid for all of your sin? Have you accepted His free gift of salvation?