September 28, 2025 | Never Outgrow the Gospel

Never Outgrow the Gospel | Galatians Part 8

Galatians 3:1–6

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”? (ESV)

In “Never Outgrow the Gospel,” Jed Gillis shows that Paul’s rebuke in Galatians 3:1–6 calls believers to present rest in Christ, not a return to performance. The Galatians had “seen” Christ publicly portrayed as crucified through preaching, yet drifted from Spirit-given beginnings to self-reliant effort. Paul’s questions press the point: the Spirit, miracles, and righteous standing come by hearing with faith, not by works. Abraham’s story confirms that God counts faith as righteousness. Gillis applies this to everyday fears, rejection, and the fight against sin: real change flows as you look to the cross and rest in God’s favor, rather than trying to earn it. The sermon urges you to reject a part-time gospel that covers past rescue and future hope while leaving today to your own strength. Your hope yesterday, tomorrow, and right now is Jesus.

Transcript of Never Outgrow the Gospel | Galatians Part 8

Opening Prayer

Jed Gillis: I'd like to take a moment and pray to remind us really of the truth of the relevance of what we see in Galatians of the gospel of the hope for a broken and fallen world. In our world we see tremendous evil, and if you have paid attention to the world around us recently, you've seen some significant examples of that.

Whether it's public figures being assassinated or a woman on a train being murdered, or many other examples of fallen evil in this world. Or maybe you know, of ways that has touched our body recently, whether it's an elderly mom who passed away or miscarried child. We groan in a fallen world.

So I want to take a moment. I wanna pray when I ask God to help us to see the relevance of the gospel of Jesus Christ for people who walk in an aching and groaning world. Let's pray.

Our Father, King of Heaven and Earth, you are the God who made the world and you made everything in it. Your word says you are not served as if you need something because you are the one who gives life and breath to every human being.

Father, we see evil in this world and we groan. We see it in shootings. We see it in betrayal, in broken relationships. We see it on the large scale. We see it on the small scale. And in our world where we can know much of what goes on through the internet, we see it in a way we wouldn't if it was just what we observed with our eyes.

And Lord, we don't only groan for the tragedies in a distance, we groan for the sufferings of a fallen world in our personal lives, which may seem so significant, like the ones I listed, they may seem much less significant to us, but we still groan when we see evil. And Lord, we know that evil doesn't only happen to wicked, unbelieving people. We see pastors and missionaries, faithful saints who die at a young age. We see believers who are murdered around our world and sometimes in our country. But Lord, we pray the truth of the song This Is Your World. We pray, Father, that though the wrong seems so strong, we remember you are the ruler, yet. Even in the sufferings, alongside our physical death that we see, we see the gift of physical life alongside horrendous evils and deep sorrows.

The truth of your gospel goes forward. You've said the gates of hell will not prevail. Father, the truth of your gospel goes forward in coffee shops and in neighborhood conversations, and in some moments it goes forward on a much larger scale like this past week in a stadium full of people.

Father, may the gospel of Jesus Christ go forward with power. Strike down the opposition to your gospel within our society and within individual hearts. Remove the distractions, protect the clarity of your gospel. May it be clear that there is one hope for this fallen world, and it is Jesus. May it be clear that no political answer can save a soul. Only Jesus can do that. And may that message go powerfully forward, like light shining in a darkened world.

And today, as we look at this book of Galatians, I pray that the clarity of the gospel would not be something that just happens out there, or something that we pray for in our society, but that in our hearts, whether we've known the gospel for one day or a decade or five decades, that we would see it more clearly and that we would love Jesus Christ more 'cause of the good news of your grace given to us through him. And it's in His name we pray. Amen.

Reading Galatians 3

Jed Gillis: You turn your attention to Galatians chapter three. Paul begins verse one this way. Oh, 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.

The Gospel is Your Present Rest

Jed Gillis: Now as Paul moves into this section of Galatians. I think it's helpful, especially this morning, I'm gonna tell you exactly where I want to go. If you want one point and you want to say, I've got the one point, I'm gonna tell it to you upfront. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not just your past rescue and it's not just your future hope. It is your present rest. I'm gonna say it again. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not just your past rescue, and it's not just your future hope, it is your present rest.

We live in a world that gives you a million different ideas for each of those pieces that says, here's the way you can be rescued from a fallen world, and you'll hear people suggest a lot of different things. You'll hear people that say, here's the future hope. They'll suggest a lot of different options. You'll even hear people that say, I don't know about this past. I don't know about this future, but right now, you just need to believe in yourself. Have positive thinking about yourself, have this peace within your soul, but it's not anchored to anything.

The good news of the gospel is that your past rescue, your present rest, and your future hope are all tied together.

The Foundation of Rest

Jed Gillis: What Paul does with the Galatians here is he works to correct a misunderstanding they have to help them to see that each piece of this experience of the gospel is vital and they're rooted within one another.

He takes them, he's already given them the foundation for their peace, for their rest, he said, Jesus was given for you, and justification or approval is not given on the basis of your performance, but on resting in what Jesus has done. That's the foundation. That's what you can look back on and say, my past rescue comes from Jesus. You can look forward and say, my future hope comes from Jesus.

Now in this section, he recognizes that the Galatians know intellectually the foundation for their rest, but they aren't experiencing the freedom of that rest. They have teachers coming who are trying to bring them back into slavery, to human performance, and Paul is trying to work with these people that he loves dearly.

Oh, Foolish Galatians

Jed Gillis: Paul is pointing to them and saying that foundation of rest that you know. Is the answer you need for your present experience. Don't turn anywhere else.

So he begins with these words, which probably land on us a little bit, shocking. Oh, foolish Galatians. There was a commentator, uh, RB Phillips. He paraphrased this, ""oh dear idiot Galatians."" Maybe not exactly what he was saying, but pretty close.

He says. You are being foolish and he is not speaking in a harsh or unle, unloving way. He's speaking the most loving words he could have spoken because we are far more capable of foolishness than we like to admit. And we are more capable of being blinded than we like to admit.

So Paul is pointing to them and saying, Galatians, you are being foolish. We do this, we chase sins. We've committed a million times before and we know always leave us worse off. You would think it would be easy to say no, but it's not always.

We buy into what some of the world around us says. You get to define your own truth. There is no objective standard of morality, and we wonder when it collapses into despair. It's foolishness.

Paul is pointing out perhaps the greatest foolishness of all to have begun the Christian life by believing, by supernatural power, working within your soul and faith. And then say, now I'm gonna continue it in my own power to have said, last week we looked at the prodigal son, to be like the younger son coming and saying, the father has given me this incredible love and grace and now I have to earn his favor. It's foolishness, and that's why Paul calls it exactly that. It is foolish for us to find rest for our souls in the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then say, now I'm going to improve the rest God gives by my performance.

It's foolishness, if I were to say it, a slightly different way to believe the gospel is your past rescue and your future hope, but it is not your present help. As if the gospel is good enough for eternity, but not for right now.

Acting in a Way That's Incosistent with the Gospel

Jed Gillis: So that's the way Paul begins speaking to them. He says, foolish Galatians. Now he doesn't think they're dumb. If you wonder like does he think they just mentally can't handle it? No. Read the book of Galatians. He clearly thinks they're smart enough to follow a fairly complex argument for six chapters. So he's not saying you don't know how to think.

He's saying some of the conclusions you're living out are inconsistent with what you know to be true and what we've experienced. So you are therefore foolish.

We need the same thing at times. We all need this. I could point at people in this room who have essentially said this to me and I needed to hear it. Brother, you're acting in a way that's foolish, that's inconsistent with the gospel. Come back to the grace you've forgotten. That's what Paul's doing. He says, Galatians, you knew this grace. You know it now. Don't go somewhere else. Come back to the grace that you've forgotten.

You've Seen Christ Crucified

Jed Gillis: He goes on with these strong words, who has bewitched you? Think of how incredible Paul thinks the gospel is. He thinks the gospel is so great that if you've tasted the gospel and then you go somewhere else, someone must have put you under an evil spell. That's the way he words it. Who has bewitched you? He describes the end of verse one. It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

As much as we love the story of the prodigal son, it's only a picture of grace. Jesus being crucified for us is the true demonstration of grace, and the Galatians has heard that this is a fascinating way that Paul describes it.

Now, the people of Galacia, at least most of them, they did not see Jesus on the cross, literally. This is not people of Jerusalem who might have walked past and seen the crucifixion. That's not what he says when he says, here it was before your eyes, Jesus was publicly portrayed. He doesn't say it was before your eyes, he was crucified. He says it was publicly portrayed.

He's saying, when I came to you, Paul, when I came to you and preached the gospel. I held before you, Jesus Christ, in such a vivid, real way that it was before your eyes, he was portrayed as crucified. I love this fact because that means the people of Galatia had the same access to Jesus that you do.

I get it. We might think, well, John, he saw Jesus on the cross. I mean, of course it had a real impact in his life. Sure. But the Galatians didn't see Jesus on the cross. They heard in such a vivid and life-giving way, Jesus portrayed as crucified.

When God's word is preached and you see Jesus in God's word, you don't have a secondhand inferior grace. You have the real grace of God flowing to you through his word, and he says he was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Remember, one of the things the teachers were doing is they were coming alongside saying, okay, you've got some good things. Now we're gonna tell you kind of the secret recipe for your life to move up to this higher life, this higher existence. We've all been there. We don't like it when people. Come to us and they say, Hey, I know the secret for how your life can be better, and if you'll just gimme five easy payments of 19.95, I'll tell you. Right? And we reflexively go, well, if you really have such a great secret, just tell me. These teachers were coming saying, well, we know the secret. Come listen to us, respect us, and we'll tell you, and you'll have this great secret.

Paul says, no, no, no. I didn't give you Jesus in secret. There's no subscription service for the gospel. I came and publicly portrayed this is who he is. Before your eyes, Jesus was powerfully and clearly portrayed, communicated as crucified.

The Transforming Power of the Crucifixion

Jed Gillis: Turn back to chapter one real quick. I want you to look at the two places before this. Jesus has, or Paul has mentioned Jesus's crucifixion. One of them is verse four of chapter one. Jesus gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age. The crucifixion is God's means of deliverance. That means his deliverance from the evil around us that we groan under, and you say, how is God going to save his people to deliver his people from all of these evil, hurtful, wicked things? Our confidence is that Jesus gave himself to deliver us from this present evil age, which means when we get to Revelation, he will make all things new.

But it's not just the evil out there. I know some of you, maybe especially those of you who have lived quite a few years, you say the evil in the world around is terrible, but the sinfulness in my own heart is worse. I can't wait to escape that. Well, that's exactly the same principle here. He gave him himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil aid.

When Paul talks about the crucifixion before we get to Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified. Here's the first thing he does. He says, Jesus has given you the deliverance from both the evil around you, you'll make all things perfectly new, and the evil inside you, if your trust is in him, Jesus has delivered you from those things. So that just like he said in verse three, grace to you and peace God's favor has come to you through Jesus, which gives you rest for your soul.

The next time Paul explicitly mentions the cross is in chapter two, he'll turn it. Turn to chapter two, verse 20. Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. We looked at that just last week and the week before that to say our self-justifying performance, or our image maintaining self, the self that trusts my moral efforts is dead. It died with Christ. And instead, I have a totally new motive that comes through the cross.

When he talks about crucifixion. Those are the two places he's mentioned it before, so when he says it was before your eyes, Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified. Here's what he's saying. In hearing the cross, you heard the best message of deliverance and freedom, deliverance from evil and freedom to live this life. That's the message you heard portrayed Galatians in the most powerful way. They have heard God is for you. How do I know? The cross. God delivers you? How do I know? The cross, the tomb, the resurrection. How do I know God frees me from slavery to the law, from the exhaustion of my performance? 'cause he's already demonstrated his favor Before you did anything. He points them back and says, this is what God has done. You've seen Jesus portrayed as crucified.

Now, we also need to recognize, there's a hint here, doesn't show up as well in English, but when he says Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified, that could be translated as having been crucified, which sounds similar in English, but the nuance, the point is that this emphasizes a past fact that has ongoing results. He's not merely saying, here's a memory, hope it works out for you. He's saying Jesus was portrayed as crucified, and I told you then that's what he's implying. And I told you then that his crucifixion is more than just the past. It impacts your present now.

He's telling them, not just there was a past thing, so good, you must hold onto it. He's telling them there is a past thing and that past thing has significant implications for your life with God now and your hope in the future. Your past rescue, your present rest, and your future hope are all tied together and they're all through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

How Does the Gospel Impact Me?

Jed Gillis: So that means let's just take a moment and say, okay. There's some theological words and jargon. Now, how does that impact me? It means that right now in the present, when you fear rejection, what you need is the gospel. You need the message of God's approval found in the gospel. Romans eight, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

You say, but I feel like there's condemnation, but God says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The gospel is not past future. It impacts right now when you feel rejected and you fear rejection.

When you wonder, I'm suffering, does God care? You need the message of the gospel that we have a high priest who sympathizes with our weakness, who understands, who suffered. We need the statement in Romans eight that God is for us, and if he is for me, who can be against me.

Right now, when you wonder if God just tolerates you, you need the message of the gospel. Fear not little flock for it is the father's pleasure, he delights to give you the kingdom.

When you feel like you don't measure up, you need the gospel because while you were his enemies, Christ died for you. We need to know the truth of the gospel if we are going to experience peace and rest in our souls.

It's like the gospel it, you could push this illustration too far, but it's like the gospel is, is the bank account, which says God can and will cash the checks of all of his promises.

When he says there's no condemnation, you say, really, I might, can you really cash that check, God? Because I do some pretty bad stuff. And he says, well, I died on the cross for your sins. So yes.

You need the gospel because every promise of God finds its yes and amen where? In Christ. If you want to believe that God can and does keep all of these promises that he is right now in your present experience, he is the rest for your soul through Jesus Christ, you need to know there is past deliverance on the cross. You need to know there's a future hope. If you know both of those things, you should also know that the truth of the gospel has implications for your soul and your experience right now.

A Series of Questions that Pushes the Galatians

Jed Gillis: And so Paul keeps pushing the Galatians then with this series of questions.

Really, he, he talks about it like it's one question and he just says it from a lot of different directions. Verse two, did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Paul has already been talking about that contrast works of the law and faith. Before he said, no one will be justified by works of the law. Here, because he's connecting being justified with receiving the spirit. Paul says in Romans, if you don't have the spirit of Christ, you don't belong to him. So he says, if you are justified, you have the spirit of God. So Paul connects these two and talks to the Galatians and says, you know, the Holy Spirit has done something inside of you.

You know that. He's appealing to something, that they're gonna say, yes, I know the spirit has worked within me. That's what he's doing with them. He's saying, you would say the Spirit has worked. Now, how did that happen? Did the spirit work in your life because you worked really hard and performed really well? And they have to say, well, no. I heard the truth of the gospel. Then within that rose up this answer in my soul that said, Jesus really is Lord. It rose up this cry in my soul that says, Abba, father, because the spirit of God's son comes into our heart and we cry Abba, Father. That's chapter four, verse six of Galatians. He says, just look at your experience. How did you go from not being a believer in Jesus to being a believer in Jesus?

Maybe you're familiar with CS Lewis telling his story of conversion. And he knew all the facts, and he had wrestled with it, and he had intellectually had all this idea, and he tells the story, something like this. He says, I got on a train and I wasn't a believer. And when I got off the train, I was. And he wrestled with, how do I explain that?

He didn't know any new facts when he got off the train. No, instead as he thought on the truths that he knew the spirit worked, not because CS Lewis had checked the boxes and done all the right things, but because the spirit worked to transform him. So by hearing this truth with faith, by not just knowing the facts and hearing them, but by responding with my soul will rest in Jesus and who he is. He says, I got on the train, I wasn't a believer. I got off and something had happened.

Paul points them to that kind of experience to say the spirit has worked powerfully within you. How? You heard Jesus Christ crucified and God by his grace. Worked inside your heart so that you said, yes, that's true and good. It's beautiful and I want it, and I can't go anywhere else. He points them to that as the way they began, as the way Christianity started in their lives. This emphasis is on faith.

What Is Faith?

Jed Gillis: There's A reason why for, for centuries, Christians have often said we're justified by faith alone. Scripture teaches that that's the reason. Faith is a prominent word in the way we talk about it. But I want you to consider, as we've been going through Galatians, we've emphasized faith is not just intellectually believing some ideas, faith is not merely making a decision.

Faith is rest. It's trust, it's reliance. Faith is when you come to Jesus Christ and you say, he died on the cross for my sins. You say, he's the one my soul rests in for my deliverance. He's the one my soul rests in for my future hope. I'm not trying to fill that up with my works.

To believe is not merely to ascent to facts. It is to stop trying to earn salvation by your performance, and to rest in the good news of grace of God's unmerited, undeserved favor towards you. That's what it means to believe in Jesus Christ, to rest in it, to stop trying to earn myself salvation.

How Did You Receive the Spirit?

Jed Gillis: So if I took this question, Paul asks, let's paraphrase it slightly. He's looking at the Galatians and saying, how did you experience the spirit in your life? Did you receive the spirit by restless performance? Whether that's religious performance or just moral performance or whatever I do. Did you receive the spirit by restless performance or did you first come to salvation when you stopped trying to control your own approval by your performance and rested in the work of Christ?

See, that's why it's foolishness, because if the answer is I went from being dead in my sins to alive with Christ because I heard the truth of the gospel and I rested in it, I relied in it. If that's what happened, then Paul's point is it makes no sense to then say that now I'm going to somehow earn favor with God. He's pointing to them and saying, this is foolishness. Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

That's why it's sad sometimes Christians will sometimes unknowingly quote things like God helps those who help themselves. I understand why somebody might say that. I get it, but the truth of the gospel in salvation is God helps those who can't help themselves. That's his grace.

And the warning Paul gives here, if you feel like justification by grace through faith is wonderful for your past and necessary for your future hope, but gives you no present rest now, then you need Paul's warning. That's exactly their experience. They're saying, yes, we believe in Jesus, but right now we might have to perform this way so God loves us, so we have this higher life, so that we can really have the fullness of all that we're supposed to have. They are tormented, they're not at rest.

And if you find yourself there, like I do sometimes, where I intellectually know there's past deliverance and future hope, but right now what's the gospel have to do with this? How does the gospel free me from anxiety? If you find yourself there, you need the warning. Paul starts here and continues for two and a half chapters.

He continues to say, did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain? In other words, the Galatians had already left what they had to begin with. They had already said, we're gonna follow Jesus. And that cost people, it cost them standing socially sometimes. It cost them family relationships sometimes. It cost them money sometimes. Business opportunities, sometimes. It cost them honor and approval within society. It cost them a lot of different things. Paul says, you already suffered so much because you chose to follow Jesus. If you now are just gonna go back to performing to earn your salvation, then what was the point of losing all that in the first place?

Essentially, he's looking at them saying, if you're gonna go back to just following the law to get God's approval, you could have done that without following Jesus. At least you could have tried and it wouldn't have cost you as much. So he's trying to, from um, several different angles, he's trying to get them to see the foolishness of what these false teachers are drawing them towards.

Abraham's Example of Faith

Jed Gillis: So he asks really the same kind of question from a slightly different angle in verse five. 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.

So to illustrate, he points back to Abraham and he says, look, you're Jews, you know Abraham, the Galatians aren't Jews, but the false teachers are, they're Jews. They know Abraham. They know what he did. They say, how do you think that worked with Abraham? Did he hear a fact? And then make a sophisticated like risk reward calculation and then decide, sure, I'm gonna follow God. Hopefully it works out.

'Cause no, that's not how it works. Abraham heard God's promise. He said, I trust God is true. I rest in that. Faith. And it was counted to him as righteousness.

Paul was saying, this is like when I preached the gospel, I held Jesus up with my words. He was crucified on the cross for your sins. And Paul says to the Galatians, you saw that. And as you heard, as these facts entered your ears, there was something that welled up inside you that said, Abba Father, yes, God has shown grace to me. Jesus is Lord. These things weld up inside of them because they received the spirit. Because the spirit worked through hearing with faith as they said, yes, I rest in this. That's exactly the same way that worked with Abraham. He heard the promise. And when he heard the promise, we're told in in Romans as he thought on this, as he thought over these things, he grew strong, trusting that God could even bring back one from the dead to fill his promises.

As he thought about this, God filled him up with faith, with trust, with rest, and Paul points back to the Galatians and says, that's exactly the same thing he was doing in you when you saw Jesus as crucified. Filling you up with faith with rest.

Why Is Faith a Challenge for Us?

Jed Gillis: There's a man named Marshall Siegel wrote a, an article, I wanna read a quote from it. I think it captures the reason this is a challenge for us. Why did the Galatians need this message? Why did they follow this inconsistent way of thinking?

Siegel says this, we might think anyone who had tasted the real, saved by Grace Gospel would spit this message back out in seconds, but the Galatians obviously didn't. Why? Because, however wrong the false teachers may have been, their message met a sinful inclination deep inside the human heart, we all secretly love a gospel that relies on us. We love being the hero, or at least a celebrated sidekick.

Self-reliance feeds our self-esteem and our self-worth. But self-reliance never offers us a real meal, and eventually it can get us killed. The first bite of self-reliance may taste so rich and satisfying, but we only get the one bite, and while we're caught nibbling at the crumbs, the buffet of grace is suddenly out of reach.

Our impulse to finish what Christ started in our own strength must be exposed and denied.

Paul knows that the Galatians have felt stuck. I would guess we've all experienced this. If you're a believer in Jesus, we've experienced feeling like I know he's my past deliverance. I know Jesus is my future hope, and right now I feel so stuck. Where is the power of the gospel to fight this sin?

We feel so stuck. That's exactly what Paul is pointing them to. He says, you know the foundation of rest. Now you need to push into living in the freedom of the grace of God. Resting in his promise, his grace, his faith right now.

Where to Look for God's Power in Our Lives

Jed Gillis: So what does this look like in our lives? If you want to see the power of God through his spirit working in you to fight sin, to live for his glory, to do all kinds of wonderful things, if you want to see that power, where should you look? Paul's message is don't look to yourself to try harder or do better. Don't find yourself motivated by guilt and shame as if that's gonna solve the problem. Don't look to any human performance.

Instead, if you want to see the power of God's spirit flowing in your life, there's a simple answer, rest in God's favor that flowed to you from the cross.

It's counterintuitive because we want to do, we wanna do this, do this, do this rest in the favor of God.

We see this sometimes when we fight sin. I just wanna give a quick example, but you could apply it to all kinds of different sins. When we find anger welling up in our soul or bitterness, how do we try to fix that? If you only fight that fight at the level of behavior, I'm gonna count to 10. I'm gonna bite my tongue, I'm gonna walk away. Those can be wise things at moments. I'm not picking on them. I am saying we've all tried stuff like that and found the same battle in the next 10 minutes.

I don't know about you. I have counted to 10 and then still said something angry immediately afterward. We fight up here on the level of behavior and it bursts out again.

But what God offers us is a different kind of freedom, where the spirit doesn't just trim the weeds of sin on the top, it uproot them by reminding us of the cross. Why do I get angry? Because I have functional saviors in my life. My life will be worth living if I have comfort or if I have approval, or if I have control, maybe something else, something like that. I look to them, that's my functional savior. My life is fine. My present rest is because I am in control.

We think like that, and then something blocks my control. You've been there. You go to the doctor, you get a diagnosis that you really didn't want. Your friend or your spouse says something to you that you really didn't want to hear. Your investments that were also wisely planned out, didn't work out like you thought they would. And if I'm looking to my control as a functional savior and something blocks it, what do I do? I get angry. I get bitter.

But what God offers us in the gospel, His spirit works within us to point to us in those moments to say that functional savior that you look to could never save you anyway. So instead, rest in God's approval for you. Rest in God's control for your good and for his glory. Rest in God's comfort. God's peace.

The Spirit calls you to rest. You say, well, how do I do that? Think on what God has done for you in Jesus. See him publicly portrayed as crucified, and the Spirit works to say that Savior is nowhere near as good as this crucified and risen one. It cuts at the heart of our anger.

Satan wants to keep you fighting battles that you will never win using weapons that will never work. Satan wants to keep you doing that. Anything he can do to keep you relying on your performance and your self-justifying. Because if he can do that, he keeps you in chains, and you might, because you've heard the gospel, you might still go past deliverance, future hope, but nothing that can give my soul rest now.

Satan wants you fighting battles you won't win using weapons that won't work. He will try to get you to follow a part-time gospel past, future, but not present.

Paul won't let the Galatians settle for that view of the gospel. Paul keeps pressing them and says, what was your hope yesterday? Jesus. What's your hope in the future? Jesus. So what's your hope today? Jesus. Because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday to today and forever. And the gospel of God's undeserved favor to you is enough for all three of those. Rest in that.

Call to Rest in the Gospel

Jed Gillis: Brothers and sisters, don't settle for a part-time gospel. Don't settle for fighting the wrong battle. As Paul said, live this life in the flesh right now by resting. By letting your soul rest in the son of God who loved you and gave himself for you. He lived out God's favor in vivid color in front of you. Rest in that. Pursue, chase that rest for your soul. It's there and it tastes so good. Pursue the rest in your soul that is rooted in the gospel so that it changes you.

If God wants you to put your trust in what you hear of Jesus Christ, of the grace he's shown, he wants you to put your trust and rest in him so much that it transforms you today. So much that your battles against anger look differently, and because we still have patterns and habits and challenges, they're not perfect, but the victory and the joy and the peace is real. God calls you to that.

We're gonna continue in the book of Galatians because this is only the first part of Paul working with them to see the foolishness of trying to complete God's salvation in their strength and performance. We need much more than six verses in order to have that transform our lives.

But for today, I want to ask you, God's call to you is maybe you say, I don't understand how all this works. I don't know all of how the gospel impacts my life. I want my soul to rest. I want my soul to have peace because God has demonstrated his favor towards me.

Sit with God this week. Ask him to display that glory for you. Ask him to give you that kind of rest in your soul. And as we continue in Galatians, ask him to make the gospel something that is not part-time. It's not just your past deliverance and your future hope. It's your present rest for your soul. I'll invite you to close your eyes and take a moment to respond to God. Pray to him and then I'll pray and we'll close.