Are We Trying to Follow Jesus in our Own Strength?


Introduction:

A preacher was winding up his temperance sermon with great fervor: "If I had all the beer in the world, I’d take it and throw it into the river."

The congregation cried, "Amen!" 

"And if I had all the wine in the world, I’d take it and throw it in the river." 

The congregation cried, "Amen!" 

"And if I had all the whiskey and the rum in the world, I’d take it all and throw it in the river." 

And the congregation cried, "Amen!" 

After the sermon the preacher sat down. The deacon stood up: "For our closing hymn," he announced, "let us turn to page 126 and sing, ’We Shall Gather at the River.’"

After preaching last Sunday as I did on the importance of practicing self-control and restrain my concern for us, and the title of my sermon: “Are We Trying to Follow Jesus in our own Strength?”

Paul says in Colossians 2:21-23 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch! ? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

And this is my concern after last weeks sermon: We can make up restrictions and regulations for ourselves, rules for ourselves: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch! Deny ourselves. 

Here are 3 problems with this according to Paul in Colossians 2:

Problem #1 is that these rules, though they seem wise, are not the answer in and of themselves because they lack the power to restrain sensual indulgence. 

Problem #2: We can have a list now of dos and don’ts and we appear to be worshipping God with our bodies but it is self-imposed worship that does not come from a heart of love for God and a desire to glorify His Name and so it does not please God.

Problem #3: Our own self-imposed rules and commands for ourselves can give us the appearance of humility. But it is false humility in that we can make up our list and treat our bodies harshly and not relinquished any control in our lives to God. And we do it not to please God but to win the approval and praise of people. We want people to notice our efforts at restraint.

Problem #4 not coming from Colossians 2: We have this list of dos and don’ts and we judge others by holding them to the same list that we hold ourselves to. We find it hard to love those who fail and who struggle. 

This is a from of legalism and I do not want us to get confused between legalism and discipline and self-control. I do not want us to be deceived into trying to follow Jesus in our own strength.

And so I was drawn to the book of Galatians.

Paul writes a letter to the church in Galatia because some people were throwing them into confusion, perverting the gospel of Jesus Christ, turning them to legalism and following weak and miserable principles observing special days and months and seasons and years! 

The Galatians were being deceived into trying to earn salvation in their own strength, trying to follow Jesus in their own human effort.

Read Galatians 3:1

“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” 

Paul is not saying, man, are you guys dumb! He is not saying that they are mentally deficient.

What he is saying is that their conduct is irrational. They can think well enough but are obviously failing to use their power of perception. They were being intellectually inconsistent. 

They had lost sight of the obvious. What they once understood so clearly and embrace so completely they had lost sight of.

Paul says facetiously: “Who has bewitched you?” It is like you have been put under a spell by some magician.

This is why Paul feels this way:

“Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.” I preached to you clearly and you accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ: that Jesus Christ was crucified.

If we could possibly be made righteous in the sight of God in our own effort then Jesus Christ was crucified for nothing. And if Jesus Christ was crucified, which He clearly was, then how can you believe any foolishness that says that somehow we can win God’s approval and earn salvation by human effort.

That Jesus Christ was crucified needs to remind us of our love for sin and the depravity of our minds that we would not and could not call on the name of the Lord or seek after Him.

That Jesus Christ was crucified needs to remind us that we are not by nature good people that were tragically infected by sin as if it were a disease that we have inadvertently contracted. That Jesus Christ was crucified needs to remind us that our very nature is one of sin. We love sin and we did not want to be healed, we did see any need for forgiveness, we weren’t asking God to set us free from our slavery to sin.

It is so much a part of us that we could not even see it. That we see it at all today is the grace of God. 

Listen to Romans 8:8 “Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”

The strength and desire to strive after God is given to us by God in His mercy and grace. 

How can we think that any thing we could do would cause God to love us more? To esteem us higher? How could we try to restrain our sensual indulgences by human commands and principles?

Paul says in Galatians 5:2 “Mark my words! I Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, [in other words if you elevate the observance of commands and principles to the status as necessary for salvation,]  Christ will be of no value to you at all.”

Galatians 5:4 “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”

If you elevate the observance of commands and principles to the status as necessary for God to love us more we step outside of the way of grace opened up for us through the blood of Jesus. Scary thought. Not the place we want to be.

Let’s keep going. Read Galatians 3:2-5

After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

Of these three questions this is the question we want to focus on this morning. 

From this question Paul asks I want us to know that trying to live the Christian life in our own strength is irrational and completely illogical. 

It is as absurd as the dropped hockey stick lying on the ice saying to the great athlete wielding it, “I don’t need you.” “I don’t need you to play this game.”

Or like a portrait painted by a gifted, skilled, highly trained and practiced artist, speaking if it could and saying this: “He did not make me!” “He knows nothing!”

We must remember where we came from.

We must remember who orchestrated and worked through the circumstances, people, and events in our lives bringing us to faith in Jesus.

John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Romans 2:4 “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?”

Now let me put myself into these verses in the past tense: “I could not have come to Jesus if the Father who sent Jesus had not drawn me and Jesus will raise me up at the last day.”

Repeat this out loud with me: “I could not have come to Jesus if the Father who sent Jesus had not drawn me and Jesus will raise me up at the last day.”

You must get this: You could not have come to Jesus if the Father who sent Jesus had not drawn you.  

Not lets do the same for the next verse. I am helping us remember our beginning in the Spirit.

Let me start by putting myself in this verse: “Or do I show contempt for the riches of God’s kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness led me toward repentance?”

Repeat this out loud with me: “Or do I show contempt for the riches of God kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness led me toward repentance?”
Are we so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are we now trying to attain our goal by human effort?

It is foolishness now, once we have begun in the Spirit, to think that we can now follow Jesus in living a live of faith in God and love for God and others in our own human effort.

But this is how so many of us live.

Before I continue I have to say this because I do not know how much time we have before the return of Jesus.

If you are here this morning and you have never been arrested with the truth of who Jesus is, not intellectually, but in your spirit, in your soul you need to cry out to God to have mercy on you and draw you to Jesus.

If you know you are living in sin but there is no strength in you to turn away from it, you do not hate the sin, you need to cry out to God to have mercy on you and in His kindness lead you toward brokenness and repentance.

Now I want to show you something:
Sermon Title power point.

On one side we have an inverted railroad track. We have a locomotive representing the Holy Spirit on this track that will power us upward toward God. 

Galatians 4:6-7 “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba,[a] Father." 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”

Galatians 5:5 “But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.” 

We do not grow in our own strength. We make every effort to grow. We discipline ourselves so that we can draw close to God but we recognize the truth and are confident Philippians 1:6 that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” The Holy Spirit will power us upward toward God.

By not submitting to the Holy Spirit’s control in our lives in our foolishness we remove the locomotive, the Holy Spirit and now this railroad track becomes a ladder and we are going to draw near to God and climb in our own strength. 

Galatians 3:3 “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”

There is such a find line between legalism and discipline. In fact they look identical in our lives.

The difference is in their motivation.

Legalism is man-centered and says, “I will do this thing to gain merit with God.”

Discipline is God-centered and says, “I will do this because I love God and want to please Him.” 

Conclusion:

Pride would have us think we can pay God back, that we can give to Him rather than only receive from Him.

Pride would have us believe that we can make ourselves more acceptable to God through our efforts to restrain ourselves. 

We can do nothing to earn salvation. If we think otherwise we fall out of line with the truth of the gospel.

On my days off when Breanna is in school I will often try to spend some time with our twins.

Often they will ask if we can play with Lego or build towers with blocks. When we are done playing with the Lego or blocks it is time to clean them up.

I could say to them: “You two pick them up, and get it done in 2 minutes or there will be trouble!” They will pout and fuss, but generally the job gets done. Or I can say: “Lets see how fast we can do this together.” And so they hurry and work much fast and more efficiently with my help and we even have fun doing what needs to be done.

Now the twins experience is very different in those two cases. In the first case they are not free. They go about their work as though a yoke of slavery were on their backs. They are not acting in freedom because the task is an oppressive weight that irritates and discourages.

But in the second case they are free. They do better work with no irritation. They have the freedom of joy and feel no oppressive burden on their backs. They still know that Daddy punishes for disobedience but that is no heavy yoke because they are quite happy to pick up the blocks. 

What’s the difference? Daddy was on the floor helping—even making it enjoyable. The same work to do but in one case under the yoke of slavery, in the other case in freedom.
The key to freedom is whether we have to do the work ourselves to escape punishment, or whether our Father comes down to be with us and help us.

Jesus Christ crucified forever tells us that we can do nothing to make God love us more and we can do nothing to make God love us less. This is freedom.

Galatians 5:1 “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Freedom is keeping in step with the Holy Spirit. To keep in step with the Spirit we must acknowledge John 15:5 that we can do nothing by ourselves. 

We must ask God to empower us by His Spirit to continue the work in us He started and produce in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. We must trust that God will work in us and through us by His Spirit.

And then we must act in obedience and thank God at the end of the day for strengthening us.