Faith Revealed

Faith Revealed
Galatians 3:23-29

I can remember it like it was yesterday. When I was a student in seminary many years ago, during one of my preaching classes, the instructor asked us a question. He asked us if we knew what the greatest problem in the church was. I didn’t have an answer, but he had my attention. He went on the say that the greatest problem in the church is works-righteousness.

At the time I had no idea what he meant when he said works-righteousness. But I eventually learned that work-righteousness is the belief that if people do the right things, that they will be saved. In effect, it means that salvation and God’s favor are earned by being a good person who does good things. Our good works will save us. The instructor told us that the belief in works-righteousness is the greatest problem in the church.

Works-righteousness has been a problem in the church from the very beginning. This was the problem that Paul addressed in his letter the people in the church in Galatia. They believed that keeping the laws in the Old Testament was at the heart of Christianity. If you kept the laws, then that meant that you were a good Christian. Paul writes to say that keeping the laws is not all there is to being a Christian, and in fact, it is not the most important theme of the Christian faith. He says that doing the right thing to get God’s approval is not what Jesus taught.

From the beginning of the church until today, people have been tempted to make Christianity a religion that is defined by what you don’t do if you are a Christian. When I was growing up, it seemed that often the message of the church was that a Christian was someone who didn’t smoke, drink, or chew. And there were times when the list included no movies, no rock music, no dancing, no card playing, and on and on. Christianity has at times been characterized by “Thou shalt not…”. The saved are those who don’t, while the damned are those who do. This emphasis on works-righteousness can keep people from hearing the good news of the Christian faith.

It is important to remember that the rules that God gave were intended to lead people to faith. In some respects, the law was given to convince people that they could not please God by their own effort, actions, or will power. The message was that people cannot earn God’s approval; it was a gift of God. The law of God provided directions and restrictions, and their purpose was to convince people that they could never live up to God’s high expectations. The message was that they could never keep all of the law by themselves. The purpose of the law was to turn people to God. That doesn’t mean that all the rules should be thrown out, but that we should allow them to turn us to God in faith.

Faith means that we realize our limitations. On our own, we cannot please God. In one respect, it can be a relief to realize that we cannot keep all the rules that God has given to us. Faith means that we realize our need for God’s help and surrendering to God. Faith means that we can’t earn God’s approval, but that we can receive it as a free gift. It means that we embrace God’s promise that we are His children.

The promise is that God will adopt us as His own children and that He then calls us to live faithfully. We all know that a parent doesn’t tell a child that if they do the right things, then they will be their parent. A parent usually loves their child without any conditions, sometimes in spite of a child’s behavior. That’s the essence of God’s relationship with us. God gives us the opportunity to be members of His family. God calls and claims us as His own children. Our response is faith in God as we embrace the gift of membership in God’s family.

As we realize that we are members in God’s family, we can also realize that it is a pretty big family with lots of people in it. Our connection with God through faith becomes the basis for our connection with one another. We are all God’s children and all members of the same family. In his letter, Paul wrote that our membership in God’s family is more important than anything else about us. It is more important that our race, gender, economic status, or anything else.

It can be quite an experience to realize that people that we have never met are our brothers and sisters in Christ. I have had this experience many times, but I have been especially aware of it on mission trips to Mexico, Bolivia, and Appalachia. In those places I have met people who are members of the same family that I am – the family of God.

It is faith in Jesus Christ that makes us all one. It is not keeping a set of rules, or living a certain way, although faith should motivate us to do our best to please God and to love each other. But it is faith that breaks down the barriers between us and reminds us that we are all members of the same family.

We don’t always do exactly what God wants us to do. There are times when our actions break God’s heart. But there are other times when God is very pleased with us. That is what it is like to be imperfect people in God’s family. The best part of it all is that when we are at our best and even when we are at our worst, God still loves us and claims us as His own children. And God doesn’t love us because we have earned it. God’s love is a free gift that never ends.