Memorize: Example of Abraham’s faith
Key Verses: 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 23, 28
Paul fights back against the false teachers by appealing the what the Galatian believers personal experience. They began their Christian experience by faith. They continued their walk by faith. Why in the world, Paul says, would you now want to step backward into thinking you had to keep a set of rules? Abraham started by faith, just like you. If it was good enough for him, it should be good enough for you.
Faith ties us to Abraham, not physical lineage. Biology does not make us part of God’s community, faith does. This is what Abraham lived. In fact, if we try to work our way through keeping the Law, we will fail and end up under God’s curse. Jesus took our curse by becoming a curse, so why would we want to take on that curse again? I would rather have the blessings, wouldn’t you? A life of faith puts us in line with Abraham, the man of faith. He believed God’s promise to him.
The Law was given 430 years after Abraham started his faith journey, so the Law does not take away the promise and the faith Abraham experienced. We either have the promise or we have the Law; we can’t have both. The Law didn’t take away the promise. It simply stood as a temporary guardian until Jesus came. The Law guided them to see that they continued to fall short and needed the mercy and forgiveness of God. No one kept the Law perfectly, which is what the Law demands, so everyone had to reach out in faith.
But now that we are past the resurrection, we don’t need a guardian. By faith we become full adult members of God’s family. We make the choice to follow. We place our faith in Him rather than in our ability to keep a set of rules. In Jewish culture you didn’t become an adult until a certain age. You were under a guardian who was responsible for your actions. Once you became and adult, you put on a different role, changed clothes, as it were. And when we are adults in our faith we “put on” the clothes of an adult; we cloth ourselves with Jesus. The role of the guardian was temporary, due to stop at a particular point in time. The Law was temporary, due to stop on that Resurrection morning.
If we live by faith we join Abraham’s family and get all the rights and benefits of that connection. We get the promise as well. God will be with us wherever we go. When we follow His leading, our lives will be blessed lives of service to others. Faith takes away all the old barriers. It doesn’t matter what our background was, we can all be united through faith in Christ. Religious/cultural, socioeconomic, and gender differences all disappear when we walk with Christ by faith.
The Arnold Journey 