Principles of Faith, Abraham is Justified by Faith

All right, so here we are in Galatians chapter three, verses six through nine. And I can't remember exactly what the title was on the schedule. I changed it here to The Principle of Faith. And not that the title that was on it was wrong, but I just... It's not inspired. It's not inspired. Yeah. I was explaining that to the kids this morning when we were reading the song.

So those little italic words before the chapter starts aren't really part of the text, but, you know, they're supposed to be helpful. So take this title for what it's worth. But we are in chapter 3, verses 6 through 9, so I want to have your Bible open to that portion. Bob Wolfer just finished walking us through verses 1 through 5 of chapter 3 in the last couple of weeks, and that's a really important section.

It's there in those verses where Paul kind of drops the bomb on the Galatians. He's given indication in earlier portion of the letter that he's upset about this, you know, this gospel, this other gospel, which is really not another. But it's here in 3, 1 through 5, where he just really lets loose with his scathing rebuke, you know, you foolish Galatians. And then again, are you so foolish? He's making a point there. But it's in those verses where he really puts his finger directly on the Galatians problem. And he uses a really effective method of asking rhetorical questions to point out their foolishness, right? There's like five rhetorical questions in there.

So just to kind of get a running start into today's verses, let's talk a little bit about Paul's primary concern for the Galatians. So we'll do that with the question. Was Paul's primary concern that the Galatians were not born again? Or was he concerned with how these believers were attempting to live the Christian life?

That's very clear. That's almost a rhetorical question itself. Paul's concern was not for their eternal salvation. All through the letter he calls them brethren. There's plenty of indication that these are fellow brothers. These are believers in Christ Jesus.

What did Bob talk about in verse three there, where it says, having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? One of Paul's questions. He knew they'd begun by the spirit. The issue was, are you now being perfected or matured? Are you maturing as believers by works of the flesh?

And so the problem is that is that even though the Galatians were born on the basis of one principle, they were trying to live on the basis of a different principle. That's kind of how I want to frame this today. They were born on the basis of this one principle, but they're trying to walk on the basis of another principle. So what are those two principles?

Um, can we, can we identify those in the text there? Let's look back at, uh, look back at verse three, chapter three, verse three. And how is it, uh, what, what are the kind of the posing, uh, horses, so to speak in that, in that verse versus flesh, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So in verse three, verse three, you've got spirit versus flesh. Those are two, two different, um, uh, signs of things. And then look at verse 5, 3 verse 5, and how does he phrase it there? And it's kind of towards the end of the verse, right?

He's got this, he provides you with a spirit and works, as it says in NASB, works miracles. I think Bob mentioned, I kind of agree with him, this is probably more works powerfully in you, you know, this is the work of the spirit in your Christian life. How does he do it? Does he do it by the works of law versus a hearing by faith.

Right. Right. So you have faith in God versus works of the flesh. And I reversed the order there so it would match with verse three. So you've got these two alternatives, so to speak. And every Christian, as Paul just said, every Christian is born again on the principle of faith in God, right? Not works.

But, you know, when it comes to our walk, you know, is it grace for birth and then hard work for growth? As I've heard Christians state, you know, I've heard people say that exact thing, right? Is that what it is? Well, Which principle are we to live by as Christians, right? So Paul really already set this forth where? What's kind of the key nugget back in chapter 2? It's the verse we always go to about the Christian life. Chapter 2, verse 20, right? The life, I live in the flesh, I live by faith. Of course, the error in Galatia was that the Christian life is a life of law-keeping, right?

Totally opposite. So that's the problem that Paul's trying to correct, and it's important that we keep this in view as we move on through the chapter, because that's exactly the problem that Paul's introduced. That's the problem he's trying to correct.

You know, even though they were born again by grace through faith, they're seeking to walk on the basis of the works of the law. And actually in This Morning's Hungry Heart, if anybody read that, it's a perfect quote by Metcalf. And he said, it is perhaps the most alarming symptom of decay to be seen amongst evangelical believers today. It's funny how often these quotes are like, oh, same, you know, same day as it was in his day, right?

That so many have accepted at any rate mentally, the fact that they cannot be justified before God except by the sacrifice for sin made once for all upon Calvary, proceed to build a new legal code by which to live and seek to be sanctified by their own efforts and endeavors. You know, I mean, for the Galatians, it was more going back to the Law of Moses as a legal code. And this quote is talking more about building your own legal code. It really doesn't matter which way you go, whether you kind of base things on the Law of Moses, the Old Testament, or whether you kind of build your own set of rules. is just always this tendency back towards law and a legal mentality. So that's the problem, right?

And what Paul's going to explain in this next section is that each of these principles have a distinct result. So in verses 6 through 9, Paul gives the result of the principle of faith. And that's what we're going to deal with this week. And then next week we're going to deal with verses 10 through 12, and in those verses Paul gives us the result of the principle of works of the law. So that's kind of how we break up this next section. And Paul uses two words that are antonyms to describe those results. What are those two words? If you kind of look down at those sections in your text, look especially at verses 8 and 9 and then verse 10.

In verses 8 and 9, you see the scripture for seeing that God would justify Gentiles by faith. preached the gospel beforehand, saying, all the nations will be blessed in you. So those who have faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. So we've got faith results in blessing. I shouldn't really say faith equals blessing. That's not a good use of an equals sign, but faith results in blessing. And then the result of the principle of works is right in the next verse in verse 10.

For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, First is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the law. So that's kind of the way I want to frame these two sections is Paul has in verse Five, he's talked about works of the law versus hearing by faith, and now in these next two paragraphs he's going to talk about what is this result in? What is the outcome of walking by faith? What is the outcome of walking by works? And they're two totally different results.

It reminded me, as I was working on this, it reminded me a few weeks ago, just in kind of getting ready to pack things and move and streamline our household, we put our ATV, our quad, I don't know what you guys call them down there, up for sale. It was running fine. We listed it online. I had a guy come to look at it, and we went to fire it up, and it would hardly run. I said, it wasn't doing this yesterday. I don't know what happened. I sent one of the boys to top up the fuel before the guy came. And I'm not sure if there was water in the fuel that went into it or if it was accidentally some diesel fuel that got mixed in with it.

Whatever the case, it would kind of run but really, really poorly. And it's sort of the same thing. One fuel will have great results. The other fuel, very poor results. So we had to drain the fuel and start over. But it's the same sort of thing, right?

There's going to be a certain result and it follows like night follows day, right? So Paul really wants us to recognize that the same principle that we were saved under is the same principle that we're to walk according to. So that's what we're looking at in today's verses. So let's read our verses today. You know what, I started back with verse one, so we'll just to get a running start here.

You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you. 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? So then, does he who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you do it by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Now, today's verses, even so, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed in you. So then, those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. Now you see the capital, all caps letters there, that's the way the NASB does it, to show that those are Old Testament quotations.

So we'll be talking about those as we go. So a question about this, why does Paul begin verse six with those words, even so? Just getting the wheels turning here. Isn't he doing a comparison? Yeah, yeah, that's right. So this is the word hathos. It introduces a comparison or an example, right? And we notice that verse five is a question, right? Verse five says, does he who provides you with the spirit, et cetera, do it by works of the law or by hearing with faith? And it's a rhetorical question, right? So what's the obvious answer to that? Well, it's by hearing with faith, Paul. That's the implied answer.

And Paul now says, in the same way, Abraham, or even so, Abraham. So in other words, in the same way that you were provided with the spirit, which is new birth, right? In the same way that you were justified by grace through faith, let me tell you about Abraham and how he was justified by grace through faith. In other words, let me show you how this principle is demonstrated biblically in the life of Abraham. And it's important to notice that Paul uses a biblical example of the principle of faith and its result. You know, Paul is actually very careful in this section, not just this week, but next week.

It's chock full of these Old Testament quotes. And we have to remember that he's kind of coming against these old, you know, these Judaizers who are trying to put the Christians under Old Testament law. And he says, I'll show you from the Old Testament that what they're teaching isn't right. So Paul also, he's proving that this is not some newfangled idea, right? The principle of justification by grace through faith is true from cover to cover in the scripture. So very important to go back to Abraham. But another reason, why does Paul use Abraham as his example? Why does he specifically choose Abraham? Any thoughts about that?

Say, Miles? Yes. when Abraham believed God, this was like 400 years before the law ever came into existence. Yes, sir. He was still a Gentile at that time. Right. Yeah. Yes, that's exactly that's exactly right. And in fact, later on in Chapter three. Right. That's that's kind of what Paul says. He says, so does the law, which came four hundred and thirty years later. You know, so he's absolutely right, Bob. Any other thoughts? Paul is quoting here from Genesis 15 verse 6. It's a direct quote from Genesis 15 verse 6.

So not only did the lock come 400 years later, but when was Abraham circumcised? Anyone recall? Not until chapter 17, which is not just like two minutes later, that's like 13 years later. Because it takes us a few minutes to read those two chapters, but Genesis 17 is when Ishmael is 13 years old. So Abraham wasn't even circumcised until at least 13 years later. So that's really significant, right?

Miles? Yeah. Don't tell that to a Jew. They will shut you down and walk away. They don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear that. Yeah. Not something I've had the opportunity to tell to a Jew, but maybe someday. Mike tells the story about him telling that to his Jewish neighbor, and his Jewish neighbor just walked away. Jesus told them at least three times, and referred to it another three times, that he was going to be crucified, and the Jews were going to kill him. His disciples didn't want to hear that. So he said, OK, well, let's get on with your program, OK?

Yeah. That's a great point. It's really interesting. But it's amazing that it's right there in their own Old Testament scriptures. Sadly, a lot of Jews don't really read a lot of the Old Testament, honestly. Just like a lot of Christians don't read the New Testament either. They're not alone. It's hard to find people that read the scriptures, isn't it? Yeah. That's the problem, right? Yeah.

You know, Paul goes into a lot more detail about this whole issue in Romans 4. Galatians has a lot of parallels, especially in chapter 3 here has a lot of parallels to Romans. I mean, if you want to read more of what Paul says about all this, he goes into a lot of depth in Romans 4.

But it's really important because the false teachers, one of the things they were really teaching, which comes through in the letter here, is that circumcision was necessary for believers. That was kind of a necessary, you know, first step in kind of becoming or putting yourself under the law. It's like, well, yeah, that's first, you know, number one, you've got to be circumcised and then we can talk about, you know, how we're going to keep the rest of the law.

But Paul is showing very clearly that Abraham was justified on the basis of his faith without being circumcised. As he said in verse 5 there, Abraham was justified by hearing with faith without the works of the law. And God lays this out really clearly in Genesis. God is very, very intentional with what was recorded and when this all happened. And Abraham really becomes the test case for the principle of faith and becomes a great proof for the fact that justification never rests on circumcision or any works of the law. Justification rests on faith in what God has said.

So Paul gives us a logical conclusion of verse 6 in verse 7. So what is kind of his logical conclusion of verse 6 that he pulls out? So he stated that in verse 6, this quotation from Genesis 15, and then he gives us the word therefore, right? which is actually the Greek word ara, which not one of the more common words for kind of logical conclusion, but what we could say is that it marks a transition to what naturally follows from the preceding words. So this is very much, this is, okay, I quoted this, now what naturally follows, what we should logically understand on the basis of that is what he presents in verse 7. So the preceding words, this quotation from Genesis 5-6, are the example of Abraham, right? And in fact, in verse 7, ara isn't the first word, gnosko is. So this is where it says there in the NASB, therefore be sure. Gnosko is, of course, one of our words for to know, right?

For knowing. So Paul is saying that there is something that we should know or understand on the basis of this example. So this is kind of logical conclusion, right? So, what's his logical conclusion? That it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. That's Paul's conclusion. That's his understanding.

He's drawing from that verse in Genesis. Now, this little statement opens a theological can of worms. Does anybody know what that might be? Anybody heard of replacement theology? But we in the church age are sons of Abraham. Right, so. So, when Paul says this, that this is a logical conclusion. Of of Genesis 15, 6. Um, does does that mean that.

Israel is not Israel. The physical descendants are not Israel, but the church is Israel. That's what replacement theology says, right? Replacement theology says that the physical nation of Israel, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they're nothing. God's done with them. He has no plan for them, and that the church is true Israel.

Well, that's not biblical. That's not what Paul is saying. For one thing, if you take that view, it makes almost the entire Old Testament completely unintelligible, right? It's just you can't make any sense of it. Until I began to understand the distinction between Israel and the Church, I really had a hard time reading the Old Testament, you know, because I'm trying to apply it all to the Church and it just doesn't fit.

Besides that, Paul himself makes it very clear that God is not done with Israel and that he's going to fulfill his promises to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He says, I say then God has not rejected his people, has he? May it never be. This really strong negation. It says, for I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. In other words, God's not done with the physical descendants of Abraham.

He has a plan for them. He's made specific promises to them. So really, you know, if we hold to replacement theology, what we're really doing is we're making God a liar, which is a very serious thing to do, right? God has made these specific promises to the descendants of Abraham, and to reinterpret those as being fulfilled to the church is really to call God a liar. Or at least call him a mumbler, as Charlie Clough put it. you know, that God can't, somehow God can't communicate clearly about what he intends to do. Well, I think God has communicated clearly.

I think that he certainly has very specific plans for the nation of Israel. It will require them to turn to him with one heart by faith. So faith is not, you know, we're not saying that he's going to fulfill these things apart from faith or something, but he does have plans for the nation of Israel.

So when Paul Paul is not saying that Gentile believers somehow replaced the nation of Israel. That's not what Paul means by this statement, okay? He's saying... Yes, please. This passage, we're not really comparing the church with Israel. We're comparing us believers with Abraham. We're not really talking about the nation of Israel at all here.

Right. Good. Really good point. That's that's very good. Important to have those kind of contextual things in our understanding. Right. Because. Because he's he's making a different point, right. It's not talking about. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Bob.

So so really, he's not dealing with Abraham as the father of the nation of Israel in a physical descent sense. Right. He's He's talking about all of those who are sons of Abraham in the sense that he had faith in God. And in that sense, all of us who have faith in God are sons of Abraham.

Miles, did you pick up on that little of there? You know, it's ek. So you could say those who are out of faith as a source. So that's, in my mind, that's huge because it's faith that it's our faith out of faith. So we're, we, we have the same faith that Abraham has. So that's a comparison that our faith is like Abraham's faith. And oh, by the way, this is before Abraham ever started the nation of Israel. So it happened long before that. So. Yes. Yeah. Really good. Really good observations. That's really good.

So, what Paul's really getting at here, right, is that the logical conclusion of Genesis 15 and six is that there is a principle that was at play with Abraham when he responded to God by faith. And it's the same principle that functions in our lives as Christians, right? The principle is that when God says something and we believe it, You know, we are justified by God. We are declared righteous.

And why is that? Because it's always the right thing to trust God about what he said. Always the right thing to trust God about his work, right? Whether it's our birth, trusting what God has said about Christ's death and resurrection for us, or whether it's our Christian walk, trusting God when he said that we are identified with Christ in his crucifixion and his resurrection life.

The principle is the same. God has said something. He's clearly communicated it in his word. We put our faith in that and that receives God's blessing or his approval. So what Paul's going to do is he's going to show us the significance of having Abraham as our father. Because this section, as I said, it's about the result of the principle of faith. And as we said, that result is blessing. Paul's going to take us to a very important phrase in the Abrahamic covenant, which is found in Genesis 12, 3. But before we look at that in the next verse here, I want to look at the way that Paul introduces this quote.

So most translations have something like the NASB, which is the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. Now, I've underlined that, would justify, because it gives us the idea that God didn't justify Gentiles by faith up until a certain point of time in the future when God began to justify Gentiles by faith. But this is actually a present tense indicative verb, and I think it should read, and actually the NASB has this in its footnote, that God justifies the Gentiles by faith. That's a fact, that God has always justified Gentiles by faith, and the Jews as well, right? All people are justified by faith. And so, in other words, what this verse 8 says here, before you or I or anyone had any clue about it, the scripture proclaimed the fact that God justifies Gentiles by faith, just like the Jews.

And Paul's making that claim on the basis of Genesis 12, verse 3. And Paul says that scripture in Genesis 12-3 preached the gospel. don't let that confuse you because you're not going to find anything in genesis 12 3 about jesus or the cross right or the resurrection right but we just remember the gospel simply means good news right um we we have we have the gospel of jesus death and resurrection as laid out in first corinthians 15 um but we also have the gospel of the kingdom in in the four gospels and here we have some good news that was proclaimed in the Abrahamic Covenant that God gave to Abraham way back in Genesis 12. Now, of course, any blessing ultimately is based on the gospel of the cross work of Jesus Christ. But what we really have here is we simply have good news proclaimed to Abraham in the Abrahamic Covenant. So what does Paul quote from the Abrahamic Covenant here in verse 8? The scripture foreseeing that God justifies the Gentiles by faith, preached the good news beforehand to Abraham, saying, all the nations will be blessed anew.

So let's connect that to what we just said. Paul just said that this quotation indicates that God justifies Gentiles by faith. And Paul is expecting us to connect the dots. Do you catch what I'm saying there? Beginning of verse 8, Paul says that this quotation indicates that Scripture already taught that God justifies Gentiles by faith, but then he uses this quote. It doesn't say anything about that. It just says that God will bless the nations in Abraham. So we've got to logically connect the dots there, right? What must be true in order for verse 8 to make sense, right?

If the blessing of the Gentiles indicates that God justifies Gentiles by faith, then logically Paul's saying that a person must be justified in order to be blessed by God. In other words, the blessing of God only comes to those who are justified. And so what Paul's proving through his use of the Old Testament scriptures is that God intends to justify and bless Gentiles and not only the Jews.

And that all depends on faith. So now be very clear here, right? This is not to say that the blessing to the Gentile nations, Gentile justified believers, are the same blessings that God has promised to the Jews, right, that are distinctions. Like we said earlier, very distinct promises and plans for the nation of Israel. God has specific blessings for different groups of believers. The church has blessings that are different from the nation of Israel. But as a principle, right, blessing always comes on the basis of justification by grace through faith.

And that's what Paul is showing. He's showing whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, whether you're part of the church, part of Old Testament Israel. I mean, today, right, if you're a Jew and you put your faith in Christ, you become part of the church, right? But whatever part of history you believed in, God's made blessing available to all men at every point in history. And the only requirement on the part of man is faith. Put your faith in Him.

Is that clear on verse 8? Is there any other comments on verse 8 before we move from that? Well, you know, there's also a verse that's kind of interesting that I think the verse that says, Abraham saw my day. I can't think of exactly where that's at, but people have used that to kind of say, hey, somehow Abraham knew about the word Jesus because he knew his day.

So that's kind of an interesting path to go down. I'm not sure you're going to go down that path, but interesting verse though. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I always find that the passage in Job where Job says, you know, I know that my Redeemer lives and at the last, you know, I will see him when he takes his stand upon the earth and so forth.

And, you know, there was an awareness, I think all the way back to Genesis 3, of the coming seed of the woman, you know, the Messiah, the Savior who would come. In some sense, to some degree, they saw his day. I don't know if there's something particularly special about what Abraham saw or understood of the coming Messiah. But I think a lot of Old Testament believers, if they understood the revealed scriptures that they had, understood a lot about you know, who the coming Messiah would be.

So Miles is Bob, the other Bob. So in a sense, this whole blessing that relates to Abraham continues even through this day, does it not? Mm hmm. Yeah. And we'll unpack this more in probably a couple of weeks time, you know, we're in verse 14 in order that in Christ Jesus, that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. We'll talk about that because there's a lot of you know, difficulty in interpreting the Abrahamic Covenant because of all the replacement theology stuff that goes on, trying to make the Church the real inheritor of the Abrahamic Covenant. And I don't, you know, there's problems with that, like we've kind of pointed out.

And yet, right in the Abrahamic Covenant, there's clearly promised blessing to Gentile nations as well. Now the Church is unique because we're really not that we're not Jew or Gentile, so to speak. I mean, we know you don't lose your physical descendancy in a sense, and yet we're a unique new creation, a new entity, and there's blessing for the church as well. But the real point here in this passage is that the blessing, whatever blessing that is from God, is always on the basis of grace through faith, no other basis.

So that's good. Let's look at verse nine. And what we see in verse nine is that Paul summarizes the entire content of verses six through eight in this one verse, right? I think I've given you my answer already. So, well, no, okay, we're good. It's not a question here. So verse nine says, so then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

You know, it really puts everything that we just said, this lesson, into one simple statement, right? This is the principle of justification by grace through faith. Now, though the word grace isn't actually in there, right? But I think the word grace is implied in the word blessing, because you think of even our definition of grace that we always use, can anyone give it to me? Just to make sure I have it right in mind. Go ahead, Jim. We'll give it a try. We'll group effort here.

Grace is the unlimited, unmerited blessing of God based on the totally adequate work of Christ. Right, but you've got, yeah, so you notice we have the blessing of God, grace is, and we've got some, you know, adjectives, blessing of God. So grace and the blessing of God are very closely tied together, right? We receive his blessing by grace. And any blessing that we ever receive from God is totally undeserved grace, right? Which is why the principle in verse 9 is valid. If we're going to have God's blessing, it can't be earned, it must be received by faith.

Now, that summarizes the whole thing in one little point. I wanna, just in the last five minutes here, think about how verses six through nine were intended to impact the thinking of the Galatians, and by application, this will tell us how we should be thinking as well, right? So we remember that the Galatians were Christians, right? And we know that Paul's not explaining to them how to get saved, though this principle applies to birth as well, right? But he's talking to them about their Christian walk. He's talking to them about deliverance from the power of sin, and he's talking to them about the means by which the life of Christ is lived out in them moment by moment.

This is, you know, Galatians 2.20. That's what he's unpacking here, we could say.

And he's telling us that the walk is based on the same principle right right back to two three verse five And three three three and five Having begun by the spirit now being perfected by the flesh obvious, you know implied answer. No right if it was you know, was it by works of the law by hearing of faith implied answer by faith and You know, so everything that he's trying to communicate here is to instruct us that our walk is on the same principle as our birth. Just as we were born again by grace through faith, we are also to live by grace through faith. You know, it would totally violate the basic principles of God's dealing with man if we were to walk on a different principle than we were born on.

Right? You know, and this is really the Christian life itself is a blessing. We kind of have to think through and understand that, right? To be free from the entanglements of the world, the flesh, and the devil is a blessing. You know, to be free to have Christ's righteousness, His fruit, live out through us, that's a huge blessing. And it's something, as Paul's saying, it's something that we must receive moment by moment by faith. because any blessing from God has to be received by grace through faith. So the blessing of our Christian walk is to be received by faith in the same way that we receive the blessing of our righteous standing.

That's really what Paul's saying. In the Christian life, you know, it's not something for me to work up. get any closer to the Christian life to be under law or circumcision or any other work that will not produce the life of Christ, it has to be received by faith. So that's really what I think Paul's intending to communicate here in these verses to the Galatians, and that has a ton of application to us.

Very, very practical for our walk. So any last thoughts or questions before we close? Yeah, I'd like to say something. Go for it. It's so much easier, because we are in the flesh, it's so much easier to have a list of things to do and try to work out those things than it is to trust by faith.

Because faith is so non-concrete, whereas works are concrete. And you can understand why so many people try to live up to the law, because they're just unfamiliar with faith. Faith is really difficult to live by, really. Unless you're really trained. to live by faith, unless you trust God by faith. But isn't that what God is doing moment by moment in our life? He's showing us that we must live by faith.

That's what it's all about. And so things don't work out like we thought they're going to be. That's going to be the message I'm going to be on the main service is that Paul had this idea of going to Rome. It's going to be this way. I'm going to have this wonderful fellowship. in Rome. Well, he went to Rome, but not the way he thought he was going to Rome. I don't think.

That's a great message, Roger. You know, it's so true, Jim, to your point. I mean, we are, we're naturally in our flesh wired to function under law. It's just, you know, that's what, that's what we naturally gravitate all the time. And faith seems so abstract and so, like you said, not, you know, unconcrete, whatever the word is for that. And we just, we just don't get it. I mean, And it takes years and years for the Lord to gradually teach us, you know, the faith. I mean, faith is concrete in the sense that it's faith in His revealed Word, very specific truths revealed in His Word. And we have to come to see those things and to walk by those things. But still, the idea that a life is going to be lived through us as we simply trust the facts of His Word, boggles our minds.

And we don't like it. It doesn't make sense to us. But it's not much different than when someone first told me that the Earth was a ball. You know, that doesn't make sense to my mind. Because if I walk to the other side, I'm going to fall off, right? But it's true. And you have to come to understand the principles that operate in gravity as God created it before that can make any sense to you.

You know, I'm surprised that Paul only said it in one place. 2 Corinthians 5, 7, we walk by faith, not by sight. That's the only verse that says that. You would think he would say it more often. But isn't that implied by all what we're teaching? It's implied in so many ways. The next three chapters, Galatians, says that over and over again. Amen. Yeah, it's everywhere implied and once or twice said in a really succinct kind of statement. Great, great, great comments guys. Let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the truth of your word. We thank you that it's true. We thank you that we can rest by faith in things that you've revealed and that through that simple act of trusting, which sometimes is not so simple for us, because we resisted, but Lord, we thank you that through that you bless, you carry out the things that you intend to do for and through each one of us. We thank you that the Christian walk itself is a blessing not to be worked for or striven after. in the sense of working at it, but trusting you for it. Any striving is a striving of faith to trust you about what you've said in your word so that you would be the one who gets all the glory, which is what it's all about. So we thank you for this passage. Thank you for what you've taught us from it this morning. And just pray that you would continue to work these truths. Amen.