The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 4:1-11 (day two) But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,⁵ so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. vs. 4-5

Timing is tricky. If you have spent time in the kitchen, especially baking, you have learned the importance of watching and waiting, and the effects of not watching and waiting. Desserts that don’t cook through can be edible, but perhaps not exactly what we were aiming for. Consequently, leaving something too long in the oven can be disastrous. Trust me on this one.

Maybe you have been frustrated at God’s timing. You know the promises of scripture, and you believe that God is sovereign, but you are struggling to get through the day. Why not now, God? Think of the generations of Jews who asked the same questions. How long, oh Lord, how long? Many of them did not live to see the fulfillment of God’s promise, but it did come. God can see the landscape of humanity with a clear understanding of timing, and he knew exactly the time to send Jesus to walk among us. You can trust that he knows your heart’s cry as well.

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:15-29 (day seven) 

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ. Galatians 3:24

I prided myself on my GPA. I was an excellent student, and most subjects came naturally to me. That was until I decided to add a business minor to my degree and was forced to take accounting. I was taking Greek and accounting at the same time, and Greek made more sense to me than accounting. So what did I do? I sucked up my pride and went to tutoring. At a small school like Howard Payne, I was able to meet with the professor directly as my tutor. He saw my effort and offered me a compromise; he would tell me the solution, so long as I could do the work to prove that the solution was true.

The Law gives us a path to the Solution. The Law tutors us by pointing us to Jesus. It is our job to do the work to prove that The Solution is true. I am as guilty as the next of skimming over the Law, but it is the Law that lays the foundation for our salvation. Maybe I need to spend more time in tutoring! What about you?

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:15-29 (day six)

²¹ Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law and God’s promises? Galatians 3:21

Jesus and the law are not at odds. It doesn’t feel rejected or left behind. It doesn’t seek the spotlight, but it steps off the stage for the star of this passion play. The law is the question that Jesus answers. The law is in agreement with Jesus. The law declares, “Choose him!”

Of course, the conflict isn’t between God’s law and God’s promise; he is never at odds with himself. The conflict is between us and God, of which the law is our tutor and Jesus our resolution.

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:15-29 (day five)

“Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions…”  vs. 19  I love it when Paul asks the questions everybody is thinking. He has already answered the “when?” question about the Law.  The Law came after God’s promise. Now Paul turns to “Why?”.  The answer is transgressions or sin. The misconception was that the Law was given to tell of salvation, when in fact, it was given to tell of sin. And not just our perception of sin but our relationship to sin- we are captives and prisoners to sin (vs. 22). The Law tells us that we are all law-breakers and cannot be the solution. The law then also points to the need and provision of Christ (God’s Promise).

“We must never bypass the law and come straight to the gospel. To do so is to contradict the plan of God in biblical history… No man has ever appreciated the gospel until the law has first revealed him to himself. – John Stott

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:15-29 (day four)

We often say that you shouldn’t trust something until it’s in writing. Only then can you put any stock in it, and stand on it as truth. That’s because our promises as sinful men are pretty flimsy. We say “I promise, I’ll call you when I get home,” and then forget as soon as we walk through the door. Or we say “I’ll take care of that tomorrow, I promise,” but a week goes by and you still haven’t tended to it. The word ‘promise’ doesn’t mean much when it’s coming from us, because a promise is only as sure as the person giving it. A law sounds much more sure to us than a promise.

But Paul is reminding us that the Kingdom of God, once again, is different. God granted Abraham an inheritance by means of a promise. The law was only meant to point us towards the one in whom that promise would be fulfilled. In our sin, though, we took the law and put all our stock in it, thinking it was surely a firmer foundation than a promise. But all this means is that we have gravely misunderstood the one giving us this promise.

Life with God is a life built on promises. I wonder if that’s why we so quickly run back to our old ways of living – building a life on the promises of God alone takes a huge amount of faith, especially in the world we live in. But here is our assurance – God is infinitely more likely to raise someone from the dead than to go back on his promise. He has already made it so. His promises are sure.

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:15-29 (day two) 

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. Vs. 24

As a young music student you are taught the ‘rules’ of music theory and composition. Invariably, when a freshman has a few of these under his belt he feels as though he is now an authority. Soon this student will notice in much of the music he is studying rarely conforms to the ‘rules’ or abandons them all together. This creates quite a crisis in the young musician, as he has been drilled to learn what you can and cannot do in music theory. Exasperated, the young student cries foul to his teachers. Either the rules are bogus, or the music he is studying is. The teacher will then explain that you must first learn the structure, the form, where the boundaries are set in order to know what is possible beyond those boundaries.

The law is like that. It is our guide and structure, but it doesn’t create the masterpiece. My analogy is somewhat flawed in that sin is still sin regardless, and musical composition doesn’t lead to salvation, but I hope you will see the parallel. In order to understand the overwhelming mercy God has shown towards us, we must understand our need for it. We must be confronted with our sin. The law does that. Jesus transcends that through the cross.

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:1-14 (day seven) 

You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Galatians 3:1

I think this letter could easily have been written to us:

You foolish Americans. You have such a strong foundation on your faith, why would you allow this kind of heresy to infiltrate your churches. It seems like someone has put a spell on you, because there is no reason for you to be acting this way.

We could say this for numerous heresies in our culture today, but what was the issue in Galatia? It was about inclusion. This wouldn’t be an issue for us would it?  We wouldn’t show favoritism to certain people would we?

It is natural for us to be drawn to people who are like us. There are people that we just seem to click more with. The issue is these clicks can easily turn into cliques. What we need to realize is the thing that allows us to “click” more than anything in this world is the Holy Spirit living inside of each of us. Today there will be over a thousand people on our campus. Go outside of your normal rhythm, maybe even sit in a different pew or seat, and see if you can connect and click with someone new.

 

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:1-14 (day six) 

Abraham was declared righteous because he believed God’s promise long before the law came onto the scene. Nor was there ever a moment when Abraham graduated from believing God to working things out on his own (the law). No, he began his journey believing God and all along the way believed God.

Maybe that gets to the heart of sin: unbelief. Sin is not first an immoral behavior or thought, it is unbelief in the promises of God and putting your trust elsewhere.  According to Paul, looking to the law for life condemns us not because the law is bad, but because it requires disbelieving (turning away from) God and embracing self-reliance.

Jesus died for our unbelief so that we would believe God.