Faith: More Than a Formula

Man, we're going to be continuing our series, This Changes Everything. Everybody say, this changes everything. How many of you are thankful that Jesus truly does change everything about your life? Amen. He can change everything. And if you've been with us for the last few weeks, you know that we're going through the book of Galatians. And if you've missd any of the messages, of course, you can find those on our YouTube or our website or our app. Also, the notes for today's message is on the app. as well as you may have gotten it on your way in. But if you wanna follow along, that's there. But today we're gonna be jumping into Galatians chapter 3. And I gotta tell you, what Paul's talking about in Galatians chapter 3 I think is so important. It's foundational to our walk as Christians, and I'm excited to get into it. But I wanna start today with a question, all right? Here's my question for you. How many of you like a good formula? Any math people here today? Your eyes light up when I start talking about a quadratic formula or PEMDAS or something like that, right? Some of you are like, I have no idea what you're talking about. That's okay. Some of us, we love math. And here's the reason I like math is because when you have a problem, there's always a solution, right? You know that, man, if I put something in, I'm going to get something out of it. And I feel like it's people, we love that, right? Put the right results in, you're going to get the right results out. This works in math. This works for a lot of us in cooking, right? If you use the right ingredients and you follow directions well, you're gonna come out with a good tasting dish. Like I said, this works better for some of us than others. If you're married today, why don't you take a moment and just look at your spouse and say, I love your cooking. Some of you are like, I don't know if I can lie in church, Pastor Michael. Listen, you're just speaking it in faith this morning, all right? You're calling things that aren't as though they were, all right? How about assembling furniture? Any of you guys ever order furniture on Wayfair or IKEA, and you get it in, and you pull out the instructions, and they're in French or some other language, and the pictures and the instructions looks nothing like the chair that you thought that you had bought. So you try to figure it out, you put it together, and after like half a day, you have your chair there, but there's like five or six screws left over. And you're like, I hope this works. I guess we're just going to have to sit down and find out, right? Like, babe, you want to try this chair out that I put together for you? I'm just kidding. We laugh, but the truth is that's true in our life. But how many of you guys know that can also be true in our faith, right? Sometimes we have a tendency to apply that same mindset to our faith. If I pray enough, if I read my Bible enough, if I do all the right things, then I'll get the outcome that I want. And listen, all those things are good things, right? All those things are important. God gave us all those things to help us. But underneath that mindset can lie this dangerous assumption that I'm actually in total control of my outcome, that I can earn God's grace, that I can earn His favor. And of course, that's not our intention, right? We would probably never say that, but if we're not careful, we can start treating our faith as a formula. And this isn't anything new, right? This is exactly what Paul's writing to the Galatians about in Galatians chapter 3. So I'm looking forward to jumping in. Before we do, let me just give those of you who have been with us, or maybe you haven't been with us, a little reminder of the context of Galatians. So Paul wrote this book of Galatians to the people of Galatia. which is modern day Turkey, which is where a lot of our church family is right now, which is pretty cool. But he planted these churches himself and people here, they had heard the gospel and they had started to follow Jesus and receive salvation. But what happened is some people came through and they started teaching a different gospel. They started teaching that Jesus is great, but he's not enough. that you still need to follow the laws that the Jews had, right? So you need Jesus plus the law. And so Paul wrote this letter to remind them, hey, listen, you can't change the gospel. You're only saved because of God's grace. Amen. We only have salvation because of God's grace and his goodness. And so he's reminding him of that. Now, this, of course, doesn't mean that we should not want to try to please God with our lives, because we definitely should. And we'll talk about that in a moment. But Paul's addressing this Because this mindset affects our motivations. It affects our motives. See, many of us, we don't drift from God because we rebel from God. Many of us, we drift from God because we start to take matters into our own hands. We start to drift from God because we lose our dependence on God. So Paul does something really interesting in Galatians chapter 3. He outlines all this for them, but then he also points to a person. Everybody say a person. How many of you know we learn well from stories and examples, right? So he points them to Abraham. Now, many of you know Abraham. Abraham is the father of our faith. And he points them to Abraham to show them what real faith looks like. So we're going to jump into that together. Galatians 3, verse 1, and I got to warn you this morning, Paul jumps in hot, all right? So let's get ready. Here's verse 1. He says, you foolish Galatians. Now, I would not encourage you to start a letter to your spouse like this, okay? Paul's proven a point here. He says, you foolish Galatians. Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. Now, if this is your first Sunday here with us, don't worry. Paul's not always like this, okay? But he's proven a point. This is important. He says, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? That word bewitched is intentional. He's saying, who has distorted your thinking? Then he goes on to say this, I would like to learn just one thing from you. Do you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you have heard? Are you so foolish, after beginning by means of the Spirit, that you are now trying to finish by means of the flesh? What Paul's saying there when he says flesh, he's talking about human effort apart from God. He's saying, are you trying to do things in your own strength that only God can do? Anybody else like me, you try to do some things in your own strength that you know only God can really do, right? And then Paul says this. So also Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. In other words, he said Abraham wasn't declared righteous because he did everything perfect or because he figured everything out. Abraham was declared righteous, why? Because he believed God, right? Because he had faith in God. And here's what I want us to see this morning is faith is not just what you believe about God. Faith is what you're willing to trust God with. Faith is not just what you believe about God. Faith is what you're willing to really trust God with. How many of you know we can say we believe in God, but we cannot trust Him with our lives, right? Well, brother, God is good all the time. And all the time, God is good. Amen. That's good. But does your life show that, right? Do you really trust Him with your life? Do you trust Him with your marriage? Do you trust Him as your provider? So we're going to talk about what that means today. Here's the first thing I want to say to us this morning is this. Real faith, everybody say real faith, is built on dependence. Everybody say dependence. Dependence. Let me give you an example of this. I talked about that IKEA chair, right? I can tell you that I believe this chair will hold me, right? I could probably even give you all the reasons why I believe this chair would hold me. I might even be able to convince you that I believe this chair will hold me. But how many of you know, I don't really have faith in this chair until I sit down, right? I don't really have faith in this chair until I sit down, and I don't really get to experience what faith in this chair looks like until I actually sit down. And some of us, and we have a lot of belief in God, but we're still standing, right? We're still holding ourselves up. We're still carrying the weight on our own, trying to manage everything on our own. Listen, it's possible to do the right things, but still not live a life of dependence on God. You can build a routine. You can know what to do, but are you really relying on Him? Because here's what happens if we don't, is we miss out on the things that faith can produce in our life. Because faith isn't just believing about the right things, but it's trusting the right source. How many of you guys want to trust God as your source, right? Trust God as your source. And So for many of us, the burdens of life, man, they feel heavy because we're not really willing to truly put our weight on God. He says, cast your cares on me because I care about you, right? See, faith is built on dependence. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, you may know this scripture. It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight. So Paul wants us to see that the Christian life, it wasn't made to be lived like a formula. If I do this, then I'm going to get what I want. If I do this, I'll get the outcome that I desire. If that's the case, how many of you know we wouldn't even need a relationship with God, right? But he says, no, the Christian life is meant to be a life of faith. It's meant to be a life of trust, dependence on God as our source. So let me ask you this morning, what are you trusting God with? What in your life are you trusting God with? Not what do you believe about Him, but what are you actually trusting Him with? What are you actually trusting Him to lead you in your life? Because faith is built on dependence. Everybody say dependence. The second thing that I think Paul wants us to learn from Abraham is that faith is displayed through obedience. Somebody say obedience. Obedience. If you're a parent, this is our favorite word, right? Obedience. You say, what does faith look like? It looks like obedience. And this is where Abraham helps us, because Abraham, he doesn't just show us what faith is, but he shows us what faith does. Genesis 12, 1, the Lord said to Abram, go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you. Now notice, God doesn't give Abraham all the answers, right? He says, I want you to go to the land I will show you. He asked Abraham to trust him. And then it says this in Genesis 12, 4, so Abraham went as the Lord had told him. Now, when I read the story of Abraham, I always wonder, would I have done that, right? Would I have really obeyed God in that moment? Or would I have maybe asked, man, but God, what about my life here, right? What about everything that I have? What about everything that I've built here? But it says, no, Abraham went. Why? Because there was nothing more important to him than his trust in God. See, faith is displayed through obedience. James put it this way in James 2.17, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead. In other words, true faith has to have action, right? True faith has to have action. Now, I don't know about you, but obedience is a lot easier for me if I know the whole picture, right? if I know what's going to come from it. When I go on a trip, like a long trip, I put the destination into my map right on my phone, and then I zoom out to see the whole trip. Anybody else do that? Because I want to know where I'm going. I want to know if I'm taking the fastest route, if there's any tollways on the way. I want to know if there's a Chipotle on my route, right? Anybody else? Come on, bring back Chipotle. Come on. I need to know these things, right? Most of us, we don't just want the next step, do we? We want the whole route. But I believe, and this is just what I believe, I believe sometimes God doesn't give us the whole route because some of us, we mess it up, right? We try to do it our way. We try to take a shortcut. We would lose our dependence on Him. Think about a sheep and a shepherd, right? No shepherd just walks up to the sheep and says, hey, the pond's over here. I'll meet you over there, right? No, what are you supposed to do? What's the sheep supposed to do? Follow the voice of the shepherd. right? Step by step. And that's the job of the sheep. Some of us here today, we're getting destination disease. We need to stop worrying about the destination, and we need to start worrying about following the voice of the shepherd. Because I can tell you, that's how we were created to live. That's who we were created to be. Now, it's okay to plan. It's okay to do those things. But can I tell you, it's not ever going to work out exactly how you think it is, right? Anybody live long enough to know that? It's not going to work out how you think it is. So I want to encourage you, we got to start prioritizing obedience every single day. What would it look like if you woke up every day and you said, God, I want to prioritize obedience today? God, I may not know every step, but God, show me what my next step is so that I can be obedient today. You know, I know, like I said, I would mess this up. If I had the whole plan, I would find a way to mess it up because I have a lot of stories in my life to prove that, okay? But I'll tell you one of them. You may have heard this story. How many of you guys like snow skiing? Anybody like snow skiing? Yeah, I know this is Victoria, Texas. This is in. in the snow ski capital of the world. I didn't expect much this morning, but my cousins on my dad's side, they all lived in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. So we used to go up there in the winters and I learned how to snow ski as a kid. And I fell in love with snow skiing. And I'm the oldest, excuse me, I'm the oldest of the four kids, right, in my family. So We would go up there and as I got a little older, my dad and I, we would kind of go off and do our own thing and do some of the more advanced slopes, you know what I'm saying? And so, but as the kids got older, like my little siblings, they got to a point where they were like, hey, I want to go do the harder slopes with you guys. So my dad saw that opportunity to go drink some hot chocolate with my mom, you know what I'm saying? And we took the, I took the younger Emily and Jeffrey up the trails And I wanted to show them the coolest slopes, right? So we went up and, there's a really easy way to get down where all the trails connect, right? And I could have taken that route, but I wanted to show them all of my favorite trails. So I came up with this plan to like jump from one trail to the other, right, to get down the mountain. And that was fine, right? Until it wasn't fine. And then it really wasn't fine, right? And we skied for what felt like at least an hour. And we ended up, at a place where there were no skiers, no signs, only houses, right? I had skied us completely out of the ski resorts. And we ended up down there and I was like, guys, I'm sorry. Like we had to call my parents, right, to come pick us up. You can imagine how humiliating that was for this older brother, right? The truth is, you know, we had a route that we could have taken. But I wanted to do it my way, right? I wanted to make it quicker. And I feel like for many of us, if we knew the full plan, that would happen in life. How can I get there quicker? How can I skip the slopes that I don't really want to have to go through, right? So oftentimes, God gives us enough so that we can obey, and then we can trust Him with the rest, right? Psalm 119, 105, Your word is a lamp to my feet. It's a light to my path. Now, I went to the father-son campout this weekend, and I saw a lot of really cool flashlights that could really light up a lot of stuff, right? But he doesn't say that. He says, it's a lamp to my feet, right? Will you be willing to trust God with the next step? So I'm going to ask you this morning, what is the next step that God's asking you to take? Is it a conversation that's been needing to happen? Are there some things in your life that you need to be saying no to? Or maybe there's some things in your life that you know you need to be saying yes to, and it's time to step up and take that next step. Whatever it is, man, I want to encourage you, take that next step. Because faith is displayed through obedience. And I bet you'll be amazed at what lies on the other side of your next step of obedience. Amen? So faith is built on dependence. Everybody say dependence. It's displayed through obedience. Everybody say obedience. And finally, faith is willing to surrender. Everybody say surrender, our favorite word, right? How many of you know it's one thing to trust God whenever he tells you to go? It's another thing to trust God whenever he tells you to let go, right? To let go. And I believe that's one of the reasons that Paul asked us to look at Abraham's story, because his story is all about that. And if you don't know the story of Abraham, let me just take a moment to kind of set the scene for you. Abraham is known as the father of our faith, and he had a promise from God that his descendants were going to be great, that he was going to build a great nation, a blessed nation through his descendants. That turned out to be the nation of Israel, God's chosen people, the lineage from which Jesus was born, right? But there was a problem. Abraham and Sarah, they couldn't have a kid, right? They got really old, like really old, like older than you, I promise. They were old, and they couldn't have a kid. But somehow, God miraculously blessed them with a son, and his name was Isaac. You know, I think some of us this morning, we've given up on promises from God. And I think if Abraham were here today, he would say, Listen, don't give up on God's promise. Listen, God hasn't given up on His promise, so you don't give up on Him, amen? So Abraham received this son named Isaac, and he's the promised son, the thing they've believed for this whole time, right? And then Genesis 22 happens, and this is a challenging part of Scripture to read, especially in our day. You've got to remember this was before Jesus. This is when there was animal sacrifices and things like that. And God's going to ask Abraham to sacrifice what he loves most, which is his son Isaac. Now, of course, as you read it, you'll realize that was never God's intention. He never wanted him to do that. But he needed to see, will you truly surrender what matters most? So we're going to look real quick at Genesis 22, verse 2. Then God said, take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac. Go to the region of Moriah, sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you. Now this story always challenges me, right? Because I think I could never obey that. I could never do what God is asking of him. I mean, not just your son, of course, but imagine God asking you to sacrifice the thing that means the most to you, right? It's one thing to be asked to go somewhere new, but it's another thing to be asked to lay down everything that you've believed for, everything that you've hoped for. How many of you know it's different when something finally belongs to you, right? You know how it is. If it's not your car, you don't care if it's clean, right? You don't care if it's scratched up, but if it's your car, you're going to park at the end of the parking lot so nobody can scratch it up, right? At least for the first few weeks, right? Because it's different when it belongs to you. The moment you have something, there's a tendency that, man, you might want to hold on to that, right? There's an illustration about monkeys, and I don't know how true this is, because I've never trapped a monkey. I thought I probably shouldn't try this. But they say, that if you want to trap a monkey, you just need to get a jar that's big enough for him to slip his hand in. And then if you put something in there like fruits or nuts that he wants, he'll grab that and he'll get stuck in that jar because he can't get his fist out, right? Now the truth is, the monkey's not really stuck. All he has to do is let go of what he's holding on to and he can pull it out, but they say he won't let go. And here's the thing, I believe that's not just a monkey problem, right? I think sometimes we have that problem. There are things in life that, man, we don't want to let go of. Plans, dreams maybe sometimes, maybe even addictions in our life, expectations. And we hold on to them so tightly and we don't even realize that those are the very things that are keeping us trapped. And see, Abraham has this opportunity. He's here in Genesis 22. This isn't just about obedience. This is about total surrender, right? So we're going to see what Abraham does. Y'all bear with me. We're going to read A good portion of Genesis 22. It says, Early the next morning, Abraham got up. Everybody say, He got up. He got up and he loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father, Abraham, Father? Yes, my son, Abraham said. The fire and wood are here, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham answered, God Himself will provide the lamb, my son. And the two of them went on together. When they reached the place God had told them about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Now, for a moment, you can do a study on this, but this is obviously foreshadowing what God was going to do with Jesus, right? He was going to offer his one and only son, right, as a sacrifice for us. So anyway, he bound his son Isaac. He laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And most scholars believe Isaac was probably a teenager or 20-something years old. Abraham was an old man at this time, so Most scholars would believe that Isaac surrendered himself. He had to be cooperative with this, right? So you've got to give Isaac a lot of credit as well. But it says, then he reached out his hand and he took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out from heaven, Abraham, Abraham, here I am, he replied, saved by the bell. How many of you think Abraham was probably really thankful for that moment, right? He said, do not lay a hand on that boy. Do not do anything to him. Now I know you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. Abraham looked up, and there in the thicket he saw a ram caught by his thorns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place, the Lord will provide. Everybody say, the Lord will provide. Notice Abraham's provision came at the point of his surrender. Abraham's provision came at the point of his surrender. And I wonder today, are we willing to live with that kind of surrender? Are we willing to trust God with the things that He's asking us to lay down? And what might lie on the other side of our surrender? So I want to ask you today, as I ask myself, what is God asking you to lay down? For some of us, it's control. For some of us, man, it's plans that we've made that we know don't align with God's plans. For others of us, maybe there's addiction that we need help letting go of. Maybe we wrestle with that, though, right? Maybe we're asking ourselves, but Michael, if I surrender, what else am I going to have left? Can I tell you what you have left? Exactly what Abraham did. When we surrender, we'll always find that God's a way better provider than we could ever be. Amen. So Paul's whole point in Galatians 3 is summarized in Galatians 3:11. The righteous will live by faith. Everybody say by faith. So here's a question I want to leave you with today. Are you living by faith? Are you trusting God with your story every single step of the way? Or are you living like the Galatians where you're putting God in the box of your own understanding? Man, I don't know about you, but I want to live with real faith. Let's live dependent. Faith that's dependent on God, that trusts Him as our source, not ourselves. Faith that's obedient, that's willing to take that next step. Even if we don't know what every step is, we say, God, I'm willing to take that next step that you show me. Faith that's surrendered, that's willing to release and to lay down the things that God is asking us to lay down. because we know his provision always lies on the other side of our surrender. I'm reminded of a story about a man who collected precious coins. He had a bunch of precious coins and one day his young son was out playing and he found a penny. And he got really excited about this penny. And so he started, you know, just, you know, yelling and getting all excited. And his dad saw him and he thought, you know, I think it's time that I that I give my son one of my precious coins, right? So he went and he grabbed this rare silver dollar, and he thought, I'm going to give this to my son. And he went out to talk to his son, and he asked his son, he said, Hey, open your hand for me. Now, his son knew his dad collected coins, so he was kind of scared that his dad might take that penny from him, right? So he didn't want to open his hand. His dad said, Listen, son, trust me, I got something for you. Open your hand. Finally, his son opened his hand and the dad reached out and he took that rare silver dollar and he put that silver dollar in his hand. He said, Hey, this is yours, son. And I wonder, might some of us be holding on to that little penny when God has so much more for us if we'll open our hands and surrender? What lies on the other side of your obedience? What lies on the other side of your surrender? What might a life of true dependence on God really look like? I can tell you what it'll look like. If we depend on ourselves, our life will produce exactly what we can produce. But if we'll depend on God, man, He'll produce in our life what only He can produce. And I don't know about you, but that's the kind of life I want to live. Amen? Amen. Can we thank God for His Word today?