Approved By God | Walking Free, Part 6

“Approved by God” / Walking Free pt 6

Gal 3:1

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.”

It’s foolish to try to prove yourself to God. 

Why is it foolish to try to prove ourselves to God?

Gal 3:2-5

2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 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— 

1.  Your relationship with God started with faith and is sustained by faith. 

Jesus’ work on the cross was sufficient to save us and sanctify us.

It’s always been about faith

Gal 3:6-9

6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? 7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 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.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith..

John 1:12-13

“12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

2.  Jesus has already proven himself.

Gal 3:10-12

“10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”

“the one who by faith is righteous shall live”.

13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

We can live from a place of approval.

 “When we think we can win God’s approval through our moral performance and obedience becomes a crushing burden, then we are ‘under law.’ But when we learn that Christ has fulfilled the law for us and that now we who believe in him are secure in God’s love, then we naturally want to delight, resemble, and know the One who has done this.”  -Timothy Keller-

Without Christ I do fall short, but in Christ I’m approved by God.